


Yeah, I'm A Girl (But I'm Also A Gem)

by AnbarElectrum



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crystal Gems (Steven Universe), Alternate Universe - No Semblances (RWBY), Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship, Character Tags To Be Added As More Characters Appear, Faunus still exist though, Gem Monsters in lieu of Grimm, Gems can be any gender, Gen, Loose adaptation of SU Season 1, No Aura either, Setting: AU Remnant, Starting with Bubble Buddies though because it's the, Wow my largely unnecessary pool of mineral-related knowledge finally came in handy. Are you proud?, and so does Dust, arguably pre-White Rose and it's cute but Ruby's 13 atm so, fwiw the Arkos is mostly just Pyrrha's crush and Jaune bein' sweet sometimes but it's there, plus a few of RWBY's story beats, psst look at the character tags. there's fusions now. mmhm., should prolly disclaim any listed ships are gonna be low-key. still gen fic sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 192,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23316259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnbarElectrum/pseuds/AnbarElectrum
Summary: Over 6,000 years ago, an alien race calling themselves Gems made planetfall on Remnant and claimed it as a colony world. One Rose Quartz soldier fell in love with the beautiful planet and its diverse inhabitants, took the name Summer, and led a rebellion against Pink Diamond, the colony's Gem governor.  The war ended with the Rose Rebellion victorious, but the Gem Homeworld's final assault left Remnant permanently scarred, and corrupted nearly all of the Gems left on its surface into vicious, mindless monsters.Remnant, Present Day.  Ruby Rose Quartz is something no one thought possible: the child of a Gem and an organic being, a human.  There's no guidebook to growing up half-Gem, but Ruby's determined to turn her unorthodox nature to her advantage and become the greatest Huntress of Gem monsters that Remnant has ever seen, just like her mom.But first she needs to get herself and this strange white-haired human girl out of danger.  Hopefully Weiss isn't afraid of heights...Inspired by Steven Universe.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long, Jaune Arc/Pyrrha Nikos, Ozpin & Yang Xiao Long, Qrow Branwen & Ozpin, Qrow Branwen & Yang Xiao Long, Ruby Rose & Taiyang Xiao Long, Ruby Rose & Weiss Schnee, Ruby Rose & Yang Xiao Long, Weiss Schnee & Winter Schnee
Comments: 93
Kudos: 49





	1. If You Give a Weiss a Cookie

**Author's Note:**

> I know I keep saying I have one last RWBY one-shot to cross-post, but listen. Canon's been a downer lately and I wanted something silly instead, so I got back to working on this. Not *this* this; this chapter was already done last April and has been sitting on ff.net as a one-shot, since it works pretty well as a standalone. The remaining 15 chapters called for by my shiny new plot outline are the part I'm working on, and since I've got some forward momentum going and I think I might actually have Chapter 2 ready soon (oh god I just jinxed it), I figured I'd keep the ball rolling and bring the first chapter over. Since I teased the possibility of further chapters at the time of original posting, this fic will be updated on both sites until it is done or, possibly, I metaphorically beach myself on some minor plot point halfway through and fail to flail my way free.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weiss is having a perfectly adequate day until she meets one Ruby Rose Quartz, an impossible Gem/human hybrid. Then they get kidnapped by a giant bird, at which point Weiss is having a rather terrible day. But it's okay, because Ruby's crazy Gem family is on hand to help, or in the case of a certain Amethyst variant calling herself Yang, to "help", and hey, Ruby knows a great bakery where they can get some "I survived!" celebratory snacks. At this point Weiss no longer knows what kind of day she's having.  
> Given the kind of insane adventures her self-proclaimed new best friend seems to get into on the regular, she might have to get used to that.

Once upon a time, a dazzling Rose Quartz so deep in colour she was nearly red led a rebellion against the Great Diamond Authority.

Her banner was an unpopular one at first: the preservation of organic life on this newly-settled colony world, so unimportant to most Diamonds that it lacked even a name. But there was one Diamond to whom this world was very important indeed: Pink Diamond, who'd been given this planet as her first colony by the eldest of her siblings. Gems began to realise that by challenging Pink Diamond, Rose Quartz was not simply defending the lives of the curious Gem-shaped creatures who called this planet home, nor the strange, soft environment in which they dwelled. She was fighting to topple the great Hierarchy of Gems, the almighty caste system which bound each type of Gem to their place and their role. And this concept, dangerous and unprecedented though it was, held a lustre that to some was more brilliantly alluring than any Diamond.

These rebel Gems dared more than to step outside their appointed places in life, like the masterless Pearl that followed Rose Quartz so faithfully and even fought at her side. Some of them went so far as to Fuse with Gems outside their caste, like the fearsome Garnet who served as one of Rose Quartz's most skilled generals. Many even gave themselves individual names as the humans did, as hushed urban legend claimed some high-ranking Gems once had in the distant past.

The war was a brutal one, and by far the longest in Homeworld's history. Rebellions had occurred before, but until Rose Quartz, none had ever come so close to succeeding. The war came to a head with the death of Pink Diamond, and came to a close at the hands of her three elders. Homeworld recalled its Gems and marked down the sorry remnant of a world as a failure, a loss that could be made up in time, but the Great Diamond Authority—the siblings of shattered Pink Diamond—would never forget what happened on the garden world's blasted soil.

Still, their gaze turned away, and it was enough. Enough for Remnant's natives to flourish and prosper, enough for time to dull the fear and pain of coming so close to extinction, and enough for the surviving rebel Gems to emerge from their stronghold, devastated, mourning, but alive.

In time, Rose Quartz and her Pearl and Garnet confidants would find an abandoned Kindergarten with a single Quartz soldier who had emerged confused and alone. They took her into the fold, saying nothing of the traits that would mark her as defective in Homeworld's eyes. The Gems were weary of war and mindful of the one too young to have known it, and they left their stronghold behind in favour of making a pleasant home for themselves on a little island called Patch, where the four of them watched the great city of Vale rise inch by steady inch until a sprawling seaside city dominated the coast across the channel. And there they live still, mostly happily and hopefully ever after.

Though it's true Rose Quartz no longer _quite_ looks the part…

* * *

“I just wanted to give you your hair thingy back!” the weird girl bawled, clinging tight to the side of the giant black bird that had just scooped them up.

“I'm starting to think I'd rather you kept it!” Weiss shrieked, also clutching on for dear life. “What the heck is this thing and why does it want you so bad?!”

“It's a Gem monster and I don't know!” the other girl shouted back, nearly sobbing the last few words. “Look—what's your name?”

“Seriously?!”

“I'm Ruby! Ruby Rose Quartz! What's your name!?”

Weiss stared at her, eyes wild with fear and incredulity.

“Weiss!” was her wailed reply. “I am _Weiss Schnee_ and this kind of thing isn't supposed to _ever_ happen to me!”

“It's very nice to meet you, Weiss! I'm really sorry about this and I just need to know if you trust me!”

“ _What?”_

“Do you trust me?!”

“ _No!”_ Weiss squealed. “Why would I trust you?”

“Okay, well, I'm really going to need you to trust me if we're gonna get out of this, so you've got ten seconds to change your mind and let go when I tell you to! Ten! Nine! Eight!”

“Oh gods,” Weiss breathed. She took a peek at the surface below and immediately regretted it. She'd been in lower-flying helicopters. “Oh _gods.”_

“Seven! Six!”

It occurred to Weiss that she was about to die.

“Five! Four!”

It further occurred to Weiss that since she was about to die, she really had nothing to lose by doing as Ruby said—

“Three! Two! One _jumpjumpjump!”_

—and letting go.

“ _AAAAAAAAAAAH!”_

Weiss screamed as she fell through the air in a graceless flailing of limbs. An exhilarated whoop rushed past her ears from below, and fury rolled in to fill every void left around her terror. What's more, Ruby had foolishly given Weiss the perfect weapon for the occasion: her full name.

“ _RUBY ROSE QUARTZ, YOU SELFISH MANIAC!”_ she bellowed into the wind.

But then there were arms wrapped around her waist and a bubble of transparent rosy red energy blossomed into being around her, tinting the world into sunset hues and blocking out the harsh, salt-scented wind.

“Brace yourself against one of the sides if you can!” Ruby told her, letting go. “I'm going to see if I can slow us down.”

“How?” Weiss demanded, and immediately she wanted to kick herself. _How_ was the girl who'd just pulled a magic barrier out of _nowhere_ going to put the brakes on their fall? Why was she even _asking_ these questions?

Ruby grinned. “I'm going to go almost as fast the other way, duh.”

She jumped, and—dissolved into flower petals.

“Oh,” Weiss said, laughing hysterically. “Of course.”

The petals hit the top of the bubble, hard, and Weiss became aware of a thrumming through the shield's walls, like a heavy vibration, or like—well, like Ruby running repeatedly into the bubble's upper boundary at high speeds in a bizarre, masochistic vertical tug-of-war with gravity. The worst (best?) part was that it was actually working. Weiss just didn't know if it would be enough. She saw an empty stretch of beach below them, good, but everything was getting bigger and bigger by the second—the waves of the sea, the buildings of Vale, and she didn't actually know what terminal velocity was or how to even begin calculating their rapidly-decreasing altitude while the fall was in progress but a sickening jolt in her stomach told her that this was going to be close.

“We're still going to crash!” she hollered, unable to tear her horrified gaze away from the sand speeding towards her between her feet. She squeezed her eyes shut instead, because surely it was better not to see your impending doom. Or was it? Should she open her eyes again? Oh gods—!

And then they crashed, and her eyes flew open without her conscious intent as she slammed into the concave floor. Sand fountained around the bubble, and Weiss felt her own little bubble of hysterical laughter. “Of course! Sand! The sand cushioned some of the—”

She squeaked—it was probably the start of a scream she didn't have the breath to finish—as Ruby fell heavily onto her back with an “Oof!” of forced-out air.

“—impact,” Weiss groaned. “Ugh, get off me!”

Before Ruby had a chance to comply, the tip of a sharp, curved blade dug into the top of the bubble.

_Pop!_

The energy exploded outwards, and Weiss groaned even louder as she realised she was now laying directly on the sand in her expensive all-white clothes. Ugh, some of it was going down the front of her sundress…!

A weird sound caught her attention, and she heard Ruby swear under her breath and scramble off of her. It was like a rhythmic sort of…slapping…

Weiss braced her hands against the beach and pushed herself onto her knees, wincing in pain, to see two rather _colourful_ individuals standing around her and Ruby's personal impact crater. One of them, a woman with long, wild blond hair and violet eyes, was smirking down at them and slowly clapping.

Weiss felt herself flush.

“Nice one, Rubes,” the blond woman—no, _teenager_ , with _that_ posture, in _those_ clothes—snickered, finally lowering her hands. Her…pale _yellow_ hands. Actual yellow, at least on the fingers. Brown gloves covered the palms. And—yes, what Weiss had taken for blond was in fact a bright golden-yellow. “Way better than that lame-ass slingshot ride at the amusement park, right?”

“ _Yaaaaaaang,”_ Ruby whined. She barely looked up at the yellow girl to do it, busy tipping trace amounts of sand out of the rolled-up cuffs of her jean shorts.

The man beside Yang, all greys and blacks (even his skin was a washed-out grey), lowered the massive scythe leaning against his shoulder and knelt down, gripping the tool's haft a little below the blade and letting the rest of the handle hang down into the shallow crater.

“Wait,” Weiss realised, once she'd finished processing the existence of the scythe. “You're the one who burst our bubble, aren't you?!”

Yang immediately burst out laughing, loud, raucous cackles of sheer glee, and Weiss's flush deepened.

“Stop that!” she demanded, stamping her foot. Her heeled sandal sunk into the sand, and Yang laughed even harder. Even the man with the scythe looked like he might be suppressing a snicker, and when Weiss looked to Ruby the girl was covering her mouth and desperately trying not to meet her eyes.

“Oh, I see how it is,” Weiss grumbled, crossing her arms. Never mind that she was sure at least two of these people were _millennia_ old, because any Schnee worth her name knew a Gem when she saw one. They still couldn't muster the maturity to understand the hell she'd just been put through. Ruby, at least, she could excuse. Probably. The name and the powers were suspicious, but otherwise she seemed perfectly human, the only unusual bit of colour on her the bright cherry shade at the ends of her otherwise-dark red hair—just as easily explained by an ombre dye job as any sort of supernatural or extraterrestrial origin. Still. _Superpowers._

“C'mon, Weiss,” Ruby said through a wide smile, grabbing hold of the scythe handle with one hand and holding the other out to Weiss. “It's okay to laugh when you've almost died,” and wow, that was quite a sentence for someone her own age _at most_ to throw out that casually _._ “We're not trying to make fun of you.”

“I am!”

“ _Yang!”_ Ruby snapped, glaring viciously at the Gem woman, who had her right hand planted cockily on her hip, something glinting on the outside of her forearm. “Ugh. I promise, they're not so bad. Besides, it beats trying to climb your way out of here, right?”

Weiss narrowed her eyes, unconvinced, but she laid her hand in Ruby's anyway.

“Nice thought, short stuff, but one at a time,” the man said.

“I know!” Ruby called up. “Okay, put your hands like this…” She directed Weiss to essentially wrap herself around the scythe handle. “Okay, Qrow!”

Weiss felt herself being hauled upwards, and in seconds she was over the edge of the sand pit. She fancied the air tasted freer up here.

“Thank you,” she said to the Gem man— _Crow? Really?_ —because it seemed polite and manners were about the only thing she had left. Even if everyone else was going to be rude and it was really tempting to respond in kind.

“Yep,” was Qrow's less-than-inspired reply; he barely looked at her (just long enough for her to see the eerie red of his eyes) before he jerked a thumb over his shoulder and knelt back down, lowering the scythe handle for Ruby. The short red cape over his shoulders shifted as he did so, giving Weiss a brief glimpse of a smooth dark grey cabochon set between his shoulder blades, visible thanks to a clearly-intentional cutout in the back of his shirt.

A little affronted at his dismissal, it took Weiss a moment to follow his gesture. She let her eyes pass right over Yang, who pulled an exaggerated face in reply (reinforcing Weiss's opinion that if anyone deserved to be ignored, it was her) and turned to see a third Gem, also masculine in appearance, standing a few feet back from the edge of the sand pit, green-tinted hands folded atop the silver handle of a cane. He smiled pleasantly at her, one of those hands lifting to beckon her closer.

“Let's have a look at you,” he said, his voice modulated in a fashion Weiss recognised; it was somewhere between the even, soothing speaking tones of her tutors and the aristocratic inflection those same tutors had tried to impress upon her. “You'll have to forgive my companions; they forget, sometimes, how fragile humans are compared to ourselves.”

“I'm pretty sure I'm alright,” Weiss said as she approached, uncertain and wary. His manner was genial enough and his silvery hair gave an impression of age, but dear gods he was tall, taller and broader both than Qrow had been, and okay so a Schnee knew a Gem when she saw one but that didn't mean Weiss personally had ever actually _interacted_ with one before today. “Actually,” she added, “I think Ruby falling on me did more damage than me falling out of the sky in the first place.”

The tall Gem chuckled. “Indeed. You do seem to be able to move about just fine, and I don't see any wounds. Still, I'd suggest you let a doctor take a look at you. Not all damage can be so easily seen.” He pitched his voice louder, looking over Weiss's shoulder. “And how _did_ the two of you come to be _falling out of the sky in the first place_ , if I may ask, young Rose?”

“It wasn't my fault!” Ruby objected, looking hurt as she stepped level with Weiss, Qrow and Yang trailing behind her. She reached into her pocket and pulled out Weiss's favourite scrunchie. “I was just trying to give this back to Weiss when this huge Gem monster shaped like a bird swooped down on us! We were down that way,” she pointed back towards Patch, “by the lighthouse near the ferry port.”

“So, lemme get this straight.” Qrow's rough voice broke in, and he looked down at Ruby with a raised eyebrow and the edge of a wry smile. “A giant bird comes down at you, and somehow you wind up on its back hundreds of feet in the air.”

Ruby blushed. “I—I figured it wouldn't be able to attack us if we were on its back.”

“I mean, she's right,” Yang said, grinning. “Way to go, Ruby!”

“Points for ingenuity, I suppose,” mused the third Gem.

Qrow rolled his eyes. “Unbelievable.”

“Ah, and there's our feathered nemesis now,” the green Gem said, looking up at the sky with a placid smile. The rest of them wheeled around, Qrow readjusting his grip on his scythe while Yang clenched her fists, strange metal bracers appearing on her wrists and extending to cover the backs of her hands. “Ruby, please escort your young friend away from the battlefield. She's been through quite enough today.”

_She has,_ Weiss thought dazedly, watching as the giant bird monster dove in for the kill. Again. _She really has._

“No! I want to help!” Ruby insisted. “You guys have been letting me come on missions but you still try to keep me away from the fighting! Am I one of you or not?!”

“Ruby—”

“Ozpin!”

“Ruby Rose Quartz.” Ozpin didn't raise his voice, but his tone was stern layered on grim layered on disappointed, and Ruby quailed immediately, chin tucking into her red hoodie. “One of us needs to see the young lady here to safety. You already know her, and you are still in training. This is the part of the mission you are best suited for, and you are _better_ suited for it than the rest of us.”

Weiss had to bow to the master. Clearly, she still had much to learn about the invocation of full names. Ruby had gone from defiantly staring Ozpin down to watching her own shoe scuff at the sand.

“Ruby, take the girl and go!” Qrow ordered. “Oz, get over here!”

Ruby's head shot up, and Ozpin smiled wryly, pushing tinted spectacles higher up his nose. “Duty calls.” He laid a hand on Ruby's shoulder briefly as he brushed past her; his other hand was twirling his cane up into a singlestick grip. The girl's jaw set.

“Right! C'mon, Weiss, let's get out of here!”

For the second time that day, Weiss found herself hand-in-hand with Ruby Rose Quartz. She was also once again wondering if she was about to die, but she'd decided to stop counting the number of times that happened. It was starting to dawn on her that running and/or fighting for her life was just a hazard of being in Ruby's presence.

“Where are we going?” Weiss demanded breathlessly as they ran.

She heard what sounded like gunshots behind her, an ungodly loud avian screech of pain or anger or both, and a sound like metal scraping glass.

“To the best bakery in town!” Ruby declared, grinning at her. “Where else do you run in a crisis?”

Weiss risked a glance over her shoulder and beheld video-game levels of physics-defying combat: Qrow and his scythe spinning into a lethal whirlwind of motion targeting any limb he could reach. Yang vaulting from point to point atop the monster and pummelling it like a speed bag every time she got the leverage, unleashing shotgun blasts from her gauntlets as she moved. Ozpin wielding his cane like a club to land a pair of heavy blows to one wing before leaping back into something like a fencer's stance and lunging forward for a series of precise, impossibly-swift thrusts. She looked back at the completely unfazed Ruby.

“You're—” she had to breathe again—”completely insane!”

“Don't be mean!” Ruby chastised her. “Look, I can get us there super-quick, too!”

Grunting with effort but barely breaking stride, Ruby scooped her up bridal-style and then there were petals everywhere and wind rushing past Weiss's face—

And then she was back on her feet, staring up at a quaint little bakery sign (“Juniper Bake House & Patisserie”, it read in curly script) while Ruby waved through the window at the redhead behind the counter, who smiled with the brilliance of a professional model and waved back.

“Someone'll call us when the monster's bubbled,” Ruby assured her, as if those words in that order were supposed to mean anything to a normal person. “C'mon, this place has the greatest cookies and cupcakes you will ever eat. Ever.”

She opened the door for Weiss, making the shop bell chime, and gestured for the heiress to precede her inside.

At least, Weiss reflected, casting a quick glance down at herself as she stepped into the air-conditioning, Ruby's run had stripped most of the sand off of her. She looked presentable, even if there was a bit of chafing under the sundress. She'd just have to bear it for now.

“Hello again, Ruby!” The girl behind the counter nearly sang her greeting, her brilliant green eyes seeming to glow with happiness. Now that Weiss was closer, she estimated they were about the same age; the redhead _might_ have been a year or so her elder, probably working here part-time and after school. There was an odd maturity about her that made it hard to say. “What will it be for you today? We still have some strawberry cheese danishes!”

“Ooh!” Ruby dashed up to the pastry case in a whirl of petals; the shopkeeper was utterly unperturbed by this, and for a brief moment Weiss was reminded of what envy felt like before she viciously quashed the emotion. “I'll definitely take one of those! D'you still have any pan o' shock-a-lots?”

The other girl winced a little, which mostly manifested as a twitch of an eye while her smile remained. Weiss bypassed wincing and went straight to cringing.

“What did the _Langue Méridienne_ ever do to you?” she demanded. Ruby looked over her shoulder at the older girl, eyes wide.

“Huh?”

“It's _pain au chocolat_ , or _pain_ s _au chocolat,”_ she pointedly hissed the 's' on 'pains', slurring it into the 'au', “and they're on the bottom shelf.” Weiss pointed without looking, determined to make sure Ruby understood the gravity of her crime against grammar by fixing her with her most severe scowl.

“Aha! Thanks.” Ruby's smile had definitely wilted a little, but she seemed equally determined not to lose her cheer: a surprisingly immovable object in the face of the unstoppable force which Weiss liked to think of herself as. “Uh, I'll take one of those home—or maybe opera cake…? Nah, the pastry's good. So that, a danish, and whatever Weiss wants. Oh! Weiss, this is Pyrrha. Pyrrha, this is Weiss! We just escaped a giant bird attack together.”

“Oh my goodness! That's certainly one way to bond,” Pyrrha's initial wide-eyed surprise quickly gave way to a gentle chuckle; Weiss fought hard to keep her jaw from dropping. “Hello, Weiss. It's very nice to meet you!”

Weiss honestly wasn't sure if she wanted to shake Pyrrha by the shoulders and demand to know why she was acting as if this was normal, or fall on her knees and plead with this idol of sanguinity to impart her wisdom.

“…Yyyyyyeah. It's…” _Get it together._ She cleared her throat and inclined her head. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Hm.” Tilting her head (which caused the light to glint brightly off the metal of her headband), Pyrrha tapped near the corner of her lips, looking thoughtful. “You look like a macaron girl. Am I close?”

_That depends,_ Weiss bit back, stepping closer to the counter so that she could look into the case for herself. Right on top sat two trays of macaron laid sideways, one tray deep pink, one creamy white with faint speckles. She hummed, narrowing her eyes critically. The tops looked smooth, the feet were even and ruffled, and the filling was neat and regular.

“Yes,” she agreed, nodding and looking up at Pyrrha again. “What flavours do you have?

“It varies. Today we have vanilla and raspberry.”

_Two of each,_ she nearly asked, but imagined her father's disapproving look and mentally quailed. “One of each, please.”

“Ooh yeah, they're really good,” Ruby chimed in. “The chocolate ones are like crumbly Oreos. Kind of expensive for being so teeny, though.”

Weiss's eyes squeezed shut. “You are an absolute _rube.”_

“Yup, that's me!” She beamed, cocking her head and pointing at herself with both hands. “Rube-y!

From beneath the counter, amongst the rustle of wax paper as Pyrrha rummaged for bags and pastry wraps, Weiss could swear she heard a snort and a smothered laugh.

“Why am I even here?” Weiss wondered aloud, staring up at the ceiling.

“For macarons,” Ruby said matter-of-factly, shaping the 'r' wrong and landing too hard on the 'n'. But she didn't voice the 's', and the fact that she'd at least tried to mimic the correct pronunciation made Weiss feel better, somehow.

“I meant more like how did I get here.”

“I carried you,” Ruby answered in the same tone as before.

“ _Cosmically_ , Ruby. A tiny girl—”

“Hey!”

“—wearing a hoodie in the middle of summer used _super-speed_ to _carry me_ to a _bakery_ after I _fell from the sky.”_

“Well where else is an angel gonna fall from?”

Weiss jumped at the sudden, masculine voice; so did Pyrrha, which resulted in a loud thump and a yelp of startlement and pain as the top of her head collided with the underside of the counter.

The blond boy who'd been leaning against the doorway from the kitchen, practically _leering_ at Weiss, gave a start of his own, wide blue eyes darting down to his presumed co-worker.

“Oh my gosh, Pyrrha, are you okay?” His voice was a lot less smooth and a bit higher now as he stepped forward and bent down, offering a hand to help her up. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you like that, I was just—I—”

He sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck as Pyrrha straightened up, giving a rueful rub of her own to the crown of her head. “This was not my finest moment,” he offered at last, flushing red.

“I-it's fine, Jaune,” Pyrrha assured him, her lips twitching upward and a little waver like the hint of a laugh breaking into her voice.

Weiss edged over to Ruby, muttering “ _Do not_ introduce me.”

Ruby glanced between her and Jaune, but shrugged. “Heya, Jaune. How's the training regimen going?”

“Huh? O-oh, yeah. Working out like crazy, that's me. With the stretching and the lifting and…running…” He laughed nervously. “Definitely getting good at the running.”

“He's really improving!” Pyrrha beamed at Jaune as she sidled past him to get at the case, bag in hand. “At least, he's getting to work earlier these days, so he must be getting faster.”

Jaune flushed, looking down at the ground. “Th-thanks, Pyrrha.”

“Baseball tryouts,” Ruby explained, catching Weiss's blank look. “The high school team'll be looking for new players once term starts. I think that puts Jaune playing next season's games? …I don't know much about sports.”

“Me neither,” Weiss found herself admitting, which caused Ruby to perk up from the slight slump she'd fallen into at her own rueful confession and smile at her. “Not _team_ sports, anyway,” she felt the need to add, unwilling to seem totally ignorant.

“Alright, here's your pastries and your macarons.” Pyrrha returned to the counter, pushing the bag forward and taking Ruby's _lien_. “I hope you enjoy everything!”

“I always do!” Ruby beamed as she tucked her change into a pocket and grabbed the bag. “Thanks, Pyrrha! It was great to see you too, Jaune.”

“Come back soon!” Pyrrha trilled.

“See ya, Ruby. Oh—wait, I never got your—!”

Weiss breathed a sigh of relief as the door closed behind them, even the sound of the bell muffled by thick glass. “Dodged a bullet…”

“He's a nice guy,” Ruby said, rather defensively. “Just kinda…awkward, when it comes to girls.”

“Well, he certainly doesn't lack for confidence,” Weiss sighed.

“Or persistence. Yang calls it the 'shotgun approach'. Hey, let's walk near the museum! There's tons of places to sit there, and the gardens are really pretty.”

“I suppose,” Weiss said, and then mentally kicked herself as her brain caught up with her mouth. What was she doing? She was supposed to be walking home from her piano lesson, not—bumming around town with a superpowered stranger who'd gotten her kidnapped by a bird and then bought her cookies!

Except Ruby _had_ bought her cookies, and Weiss wanted them, and it would be rude to take them and run. And while Ruby had (probably) endangered her life, she'd also (definitely) saved it, and even with the near-death experience she still had—Weiss checked her watch—almost twenty minutes before Klein would expect her home, since her lesson had ended early.

So here she was, following the weirdest person she'd ever met into one of the nicer downtown districts for a sorry-your-day-got-derailed-by-literal-monsters snack in the museum gardens.

Absently, she tugged at the front of her sundress, her mouth curling as sand crumbled off the inside of the fabric and fell against her skin. The motion caught Ruby's eye, and she frowned sympathetically.

“I'm sorry you got sand in your bra,” she said, sounding genuinely remorseful, and Weiss's carefully-maintained translucent-pale skin blushed stoplight red from her head right down to her chest.

“How about we save the talking for when we get there?” she suggested pointedly, ignoring the unusually high pitch of her voice. “Great, let's do that, glad you agree.”

“…Okay,” Ruby mumbled, looking at her out of the corner of her eye like _Weiss_ was the weird one.

When she _did_ finally get home and Klein asked her how her day had been, Weiss was going to have to either lie or just start laughing, and laughing, and maybe crying too.

* * *

The gardens were virtually empty this time of day. Ruby and Weiss sat on a curved concrete bench beneath a gnarled old willow tree, looking out over a bed filled with columbines and bleeding-hearts and coral bells that gave way to irises and wild roses where the sun was stronger. Even the willow itself had plants strewn about its roots, from the heart-shaped leaves of wild ginger to white-petalled wood anemones to the deep green spikes of lilies-of-the-valley near the end of their bloom. The noise of the city was distant, background, held away by space and off-white marble walls.

“This is nice,” Weiss said in some surprise. The City of Vale was relatively large, and Weiss was fairly new to it, so when Ruby had mentioned a museum she hadn't been certain which one the younger girl had been referring to. The stately marble building off to her right wasn't one that had come to mind. “I don't think I've been here before.”

“It's the natural history museum.” Ruby brushed some of the pastry crumbs off the front of her hoodie before taking another bite of her danish. “Mmph. The exhibits are really cool too. Dr. Oobleck takes me to see them sometimes. He's my tutor,” she added before Weiss could ask. “Well, sort of; I think we're friends too. He covers history and some science and sometimes I have to write papers for him so I guess that counts for language skills.”

Weiss cocked her head. “You don't go to school?”

Ruby flushed, squirming as if uncomfortable. “Uh. No. I'm thinking about maybe asking about high school but…” She sighed. “I know, it's weird.”

“No, it isn't.” Weiss raised the raspberry macaron from where it sat on the napkin spread across her lap, inspecting it critically. “I was instructed by private tutors for much of my life as well. I moved to Vale specifically to attend Signal Academy—it's one of the premier schools in the world for college prep, you know.” She bit off half of the little sandwich cookie; the meringue crumbled into colourful shards of sugar in her mouth, lightly fruity in flavour. The jam filling was strained of seeds and had been cooked down thick, but still tasted pleasantly tart and distinctly of raspberry.

“Oh; I know Signal! It's over on Patch, right by my house! Did you just move here recently?”

“Earlier this summer. I'm from Atlas originally.” Which went without saying, since she'd already introduced herself with her full name and who didn't know the Schnee family was Atlesian? Weiss wanted to smack herself.

…Except Ruby just nodded, looking interested. “I've never been to Atlas. Actually, I've never really left Vale. I know Dad has a few times, but mostly he goes over to Vacuo or across to Anima. All I know about Atlas is what I've read and what the Gems have told me about their trips.” Weiss heard a scroll chime, a different tone from her own, and Ruby shifted her danish into a one handed grip as she dug the device out of her pocket. “Speaking of. Yang says they poofed the monster birdie and bubbled its core, so everything should be safe for now. I'll just…let her know what's up…and…”

Her tongue poked out between her teeth as she laboriously tapped out a message with a single thumb. “Sent! Now no one needs to worry.” She smiled brightly at Weiss as she tucked her scroll away again, the expression shifting abruptly into one of surprise as her hand disappeared from view. “Huh? Oh!”

Her hand reappeared, holding Weiss's scrunchie. “I never got to return this! I'm sorry.” She held it out, and Weiss took it from her. Something about her face felt odd as she did so.

…She was smiling, Weiss realised, and couldn't quite bring herself to stop.

“Thank you,” she said, the words tasting strange on her tongue. She popped the rest of the macaron into her mouth, where it began to dissolve, and brushed her fingers together briskly, ridding them of finely-powdered pink meringue before she reached for her ponytail. She didn't have a hairbrush with her, so she just looped the scrunchie right over the elastic band already in place, tugging at the fabric until it flared just right, like a tiny crown perched off-centre at the back of her head.

Ruby gave her a thumbs up when she was done, saying nothing as she was busy taking another huge bite out of the danish in her other hand.

Weiss's little smile faded as she gazed out over the flowers; one hand tapped lightly at the delicate shell of the vanilla macaron, still untasted. “So. Ruby. That's…the name of a gemstone.” She felt stupid for stating the obvious. She _hated_ feeling stupid; it made her want to lash out, to snap even though it had been her choice to broach the subject that way, and she could feel the dull ache in her teeth that meant she'd begun to subconsciously clench her jaw.

“Yup,” Ruby agreed, oblivious. “Crystalline aluminum oxide, coloured by chromium, hardness of nine. Wonder what it is about the titanium and iron that makes for such a class difference. I mean, it's such a trace amount, y'know? They're all corundum.” She sighed. “We care too much about colour.”

Weiss's finger punched right through the merengue, causing the top of the cookie to cave in on itself, its buttercream filling slightly chill against her fingertip. She stared blankly at Ruby for a long moment. Ruby stared back, slowly tilting her head to one side.

“Everything okay there, Weiss?” Her voice was careful, like she was trying not to spook the older girl.

“Yes,” Weiss said quickly, mechanically. “It's—yes.” She looked down at her macaron and hurried to lift it, bite it in half, hide the evidence of her brief lapse in composure. “'They',” she echoed once she had swallowed. “So you're not…?”

Ruby snorted in laughter, a hideously undignified sound. “What, a Ruby? Psh, no. Dad thought it was a nice name and Mom didn't want me to feel constrained by labels. They don't make Rubies in my shade. Plus, I'm _way_ too tall.” She was one of the shortest people Weiss had ever met, even considering her age, but she also clearly meant every word. “Nope, I'm human.”

Evidently, Weiss's expression conveyed her scepticism perfectly. Ruby made a face and shoved the rest of her danish into it.

“Okay, _half_ -human,” she amended, sounding most put-upon—or maybe that was the mouthful of danish, which she swallowed before continuing. “I know what you're thinking, ' _that's not a thing!',_ but it's true. See?”

She reached down, grabbing the hem of her hoodie and pulling it up over her head. She tied the arms of it around her waist and ran her fingers through her short hair until it laid mostly flat again, but Weiss wasn't paying attention to any of that. All her focus was caught by what should have been an empty stretch of skin, the flat space over the upper sternum, above cleavage and below clavicle. Instead, partially-hidden until Ruby tugged her rumpled black tank top down into place, there was the large upper face of a round-cut brilliant gem set directly in her body. In the indirect sunlight of their shaded bench, it seemed to glow subtly in a warm rose red.

Weiss realised her mouth was gaping. She snapped it closed with a click of teeth-on-teeth and immediately winced.

“Ta-dah,” Ruby announced, smiling weakly. She didn't seem ashamed of the Gem; her body language was too open, too easy for that, and she hadn't hesitated to remove her hoodie. It wasn't her nature, impossible as said nature was, that had her worried. Just Weiss's potential reaction to it.

“Ruby Rose Quartz,” Weiss said as she remembered. “And 'young Rose'—that's what, er, the green Gem called you. So is that your Gem half? Rose Quartz?”

Ruby nodded. “Yeah. This was my mother's. Now it's mine.” She wouldn't meet Weiss's eyes.

“It's…”

Weiss struggled to find the right word. And the longer she did, the more Ruby's shoulders drooped, tucking inwards, her body turning subtly away. It was a familiar posture, horribly familiar, one she'd spent years training herself out of because a Schnee didn't cower and now _she_ was making someone feel small and worthless and unwanted and—

“It's pretty,” Weiss blurted out, and it wasn't the word she wanted, but it wasn't _not_ the word she wanted either. More importantly, it made Ruby lift her head, made her shoulders straighten and her jean shorts go _scrape-scrape_ against the concrete bench as the incremental shifting away from Weiss was undone in a single swift movement. Ruby's eyes were wide as they met Weiss's, and Weiss had no idea what her face looked like in that moment but clearly it was at least sincere, because Ruby smiled, huffing out a breathless laugh of relief.

“I guess?” She touched her fingertips to the skin around her Gem as if to reassure herself. “I never really thought about it. It's just there, y'know? Like my nose, or my belly button, or my knees. Normal body parts, just, I've got one extra from most humans and it's also a shiny rock. That's all.”

“Right,” Weiss agreed inanely. “Makes sense,” which was a bold-faced lie, but it didn't feel like it _should_ have been a lie. It was more like a truth she hadn't grown into yet.

“His name's Ozpin, by the way.”

“Huh?”

“The green Gem. The one who calls me 'young Rose'?” Ruby prompted her. “His name's Ozpin. He's a Garnet subtype called a Demantoid. He's pretty formal; when he talks about Mom he usually calls her 'Lady Rose', so I think that's where my nickname comes from. The feminine Gem is a Quartz like me. Her name's Yang. I'm pretty sure she's Amethyst by make but she identifies as Ametrine since she's got so much Citrine colouration. The other masculine Gem is Qrow—that's Qrow with a Q, and he's a Pearl. He and my Mom were best friends. I think he's _specifically_ a Black Pearl, but his eyes are red and he mostly seems grey, not black, but actual like jewellery black pearls do look grey and I've never actually seen another Gem Pearl so…?”

Ruby shrugged expansively, as if she hadn't just casually dumped a bunch of extraterrestrial socio-ethnic politics in Weiss's lap. Somehow the fact that it all sounded like simple geology jargon made it worse.

Weiss had so many questions. About Gems, about Ruby, about Ruby's mom and how someone could _inherit_ a Gem, about monsters brazen enough to enter not just a kingdom's borders but a capitol city's limits despite the fact that every history book said that the Gems of Remnant and the humans and Faunus they'd trained in combat had culled the better part of the monster population in the great Hunts of centuries past. And somehow out of everything she wanted to ask, the question that won out—the only question that ever even _made_ it out—was “Why a Q?”

Ruby shrugged again, the gesture smaller, contained. Less 'who can truly fathom the cosmos?' and more 'but what're you gonna do?'.

Weiss nodded slowly. “Okay,” she said, and popped the other half of the macaron in her mouth.

* * *

They parted ways in front of the museum's main gate. Weiss found herself glancing back over her shoulder after walking just a few paces, and thus caught Ruby doing the same thing, the facets of her Rose Quartz gem glinting in the worn light of the late-afternoon sun. Ruby grinned and waved brightly at her before turning away, short legs striding confidently west towards Patch, the mostly-empty bakery bag swinging loosely in her grip. Weiss touched a hand to her scrunchie, feeling its ruffled edge brushing her fingers, and turned back east towards home. The taste of vanilla still lingered on her tongue.

Since the day had begun, she'd lost her patience, her temper, and her sanity. Nearing day's end, she'd gained patience and even temper back along with her favourite scrunchie, plus two gourmet cookies and the scroll number of the half-alien girl who'd bought them for her. Sanity, she concluded, was probably gone for good. Time would tell if it was a fair exchange.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The incredibly deep thoughts that generated this fic, paraphrased and abridged: Dead mom...also dead mom...rose symbolism...inherited powers and no clue how to use them...goofy shorts-wearing single dad...irresponsible older-sister figure with crazy-long hair...devoted close friend/"close friend" of dead rose mom with sword/polearm proficiency...ohohohoh I can make a fic out of this...but like, Weiss matches Pearl's personality better...but she doesn't connect to Summer at all...and she and Ruby are partners so she should be Connie? Yes? Maybe? Yes. And Garnet. Garnet...? ohmygod no one matches up with Garnet. And there's her whole backstory to consider and WAIT. Plot-twisty backstory+sunglasses=Ozpin. nailed it.
> 
> Chapter 2, when it is finished, will draw on the SU episodes Gem Glow and Laser Light Cannon, and has been my first time writing Taiyang Xiao Long. It looks less and less like the episodes it's allegedly based on the further in I get and honestly I'm okay with that.
> 
> But enough about Chapter 2, how was Chapter 1? What did you think? Let me know. Seriously, I got like, one comment on the original post so I've just been taking that and the handful of people that signed up for update notifications as my proof that I'm not delusional and this whole crossover project really does have legs. Comments, critiques, kudos; I will take what you are willing to give. And even if that something is nothing, thank you for reading!


	2. Scope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missions with the Gems are all well and good, but when Ruby sees a chance to accompany her dad on a trip outside the capitol, she doesn’t let it get away. Time for some father-daughter bonding, featuring terrible jokes, stories about Summer, and inevitably, a monster attack.
> 
> So basically, Ruby’s ideal camping trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A prompt update! I wouldn’t get used to that. That is setting yourself up for disappointment, trust me. This is an aberration I hope, but dare not promise, to repeat. That said, it’s amazing how one’s words-per-day count goes up when one cannot leave one’s house. Aaaand that’s enough of the real world for one author’s note. Go forth! Read! And as always, I hope you enjoy!

_“Pleeeeeaaaase?”_ Ruby whined, not for the first time.

“Ruby, c’mon, you know it’s gonna be dangerous,” Taiyang sighed, continuing to load equipment into the bed of his truck. “Qrow told me you and another girl were kidnapped by a Gem monster just last week. Why’re you so fired up to throw yourself at more?”

“Weiss and I weren’t _kidnapped,”_ Ruby scoffed. “We made a tactical decision to get up on the birdie’s back and it worked perfectly.”

“Well, according to Yang you two landed hard enough to leave a crater _and_ you fell on top of your new friend.”

“My plan is as inscrutable as it was flawless!”

Tai chuckled, shoving a collapsed one-person tent into place. “Gotcha.”

“So can I come?”

“Ruby…”

“Daaaaad!” Ruby pouted. “Did Yang and Qrow tell you I’ve been getting better at shields, and that I can move almost as fast as Dr. Oobleck now? I can pull my own weight! Literally; I carried Weiss halfway across town and she’s like a couple inches taller than me, but I don’t think she eats enough so it evens out.”

“If being strong and fast were all it took to win a fight, the monsters would get even more of us than they already do,” Tai reminded her, a hint of severity slipping into his voice. “I know the Gems make it look easy, rosebud, but hunting monsters is dangerous work.”

Taiyang was one of the last of a dying breed: the flesh-and-blood Huntsman, trained by Gems to hunt Gem monsters. Back in the day (in the Gem sense of the phrase, which could mean anything from ‘about fifty years ago’ to ‘before the dawn of native civilisation’) monsters had literally outnumbered the world population, Gem, human, and Faunus alike, and Summer Rose Quartz and her allies had trained Remnant’s organic inhabitants to fight them in the name of survival. Now, though, the monsters had been almost entirely eradicated from Remnant’s most populated areas. Those that still roamed the wilderness were generally considered to be the Gems’ responsibility; the few remaining Huntsmen like Tai were called on when they started to encroach on settlements, or when expansion pushed human and Faunus territory out into less peaceful lands.

“But _I’m_ a Gem,” Ruby argued.

“You’re also a human, and you’re thirteen.” Tai crossed his arms, seating himself on the truck’s tailgate. “You’re really grown up in a lot of ways, sweetie, but you’re still a kid— _my_ kid.”

Ruby threw her arm out in the direction of the house. “The Gems let me come on missions with them! …Sometimes!”

Tai grimaced. “That’s their choice. And I try not to worry too much about that because, yeah, it hurts to admit it, but three ancient immortal super-warriors have a much better chance of keeping you safe than your fleshy old dad does.”

“But you don’t _have_ to keep me safe. I can keep _myself_ safe!” Ruby looked down at the ground. “…I just don’t get to see you that much anymore,” she said quietly.

“Oh, Ruby…” Tai softened. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt, that’s all. Sometimes things can go sideways, and I’m not sure I can look out for both of us if they do.”

Ruby’s face fell. “You think I’d be dead weight.”

“No! No, that’s not it at all, sweetie. Hey.” He leaned forward, bracing his hands on his knees, so he could look her in the eyes. “It’s not that I don’t think you can look after yourself, I just don’t know how _much_ looking after yourself you’ll have to do, and you’re still in training.”

“It should be safe to take her along.”

Tai nearly fell off the tailgate, swearing; Ruby yelped, reeling back in surprise. Father and daughter both stared at Ozpin, who was leaning against the truck as casually as if he’d been there the whole time, elbow resting on the side of the bed. He sipped from a mug in his other hand as he stared right back.

“You know, I really hate it when you do that,” Taiyang said weakly, breaking the silence at last.

“Do what?” Ozpin smiled cheerfully. “Don’t sit on the asphalt, young Rose, you’ll regret it later. Your intel says there’s at most what, two, three Beta-Class monsters?” he asked Tai. “Child’s play for a Huntsman of your calibre. And as you yourself pointed out, Ruby is half-human. If she truly does intend to dedicate herself to this sort of work, it would be good for her to see first-hand how a human Huntsman operates in the field.”

“No offense, Oz,” Taiyang replied blandly, “but I’m not comfortable taking safety advice from the guy who used to throw recruits off a cliff and make them fight their way back through monster-infested woodland before he’d agree to train them.”

Ozpin nodded thoughtfully. “That’s fair,” he allowed, taking another sip.

“He’s right, though,” Ruby said, dusting the last of the asphalt residue off the backs of her legs with haphazard swipes of her hands.

“I am,” Ozpin agreed.

They turned to stare at him again.

“I’ll be inside,” he said, lifting his arm away from the truck and tucking that hand into his pocket instead as he strode towards the porch.

“I know he’s the quote-unquote ‘responsible’ one and I’m _pretty_ sure I like him, but he is so goddamn weird,” Tai said quietly, shaking his head.

“And _right_ ,” Ruby repeated. “C’mon, Dad, it’s not _safe,_ but it’s still a one-man mission. If you really really don’t want me helping, I can hang back while you do the actual fighting, and you can just…show me the ropes! It’ll be like a camping trip, but with monster slaying. And y’know, if you _do_ want me to help fight, I can! Look, I’ve got my hunting cloak and everything!”

So saying, she struggled her hoodie over her head with rather more difficulty than usual; as she did so, folds of a different material fell out, so that once she had it off there was a rumpled red cape hanging around her shoulders, her Gemstone visible between the cowl at her throat and the neckline of her shirt.

“How were you not dying of heat with all that on?” Taiyang demanded.

“I was actually,” Ruby admitted, reaching beneath her cloak to tie her hoodie around her waist. “Worth it!”

Tai’s expression changed as he reached out, gently grasping the edge of the cloak. “That’s your mom’s, isn’t it?”

Ruby looked down. “Yeah. Qrow gave it to me the first time I got to go along on a mission. _Totally_ thought he’d take it back after I broke that fancy magic tower thingy…”

“Alright.”

Her head jerked up. “What?”

Tai was smiling at her. “Alright,” he repeated. “You can come— _if_ you can be packed and ready in fifteen minutes. Lesson One: Huntsmen don’t always have ready access to the warps and even if they do, there isn’t always one close to where they need to go. For a Gem, that’s okay, but us meat-people gotta carry supplies with us, and we don’t always have a lot of time to get what we need together. Time starts now!”—and Ruby was already gone, rose petals flying in her wake. Taiyang blinked, a little surprised still by his daughter’s emerging powers.

“Maybe a speed challenge wasn’t the smartest move,” he mused aloud. A brisk wind rustled past his face.

“Okay!”

He leapt off the tailgate at the sound of Ruby’s voice from behind him, wheeling around to see her kneeling in the truck bed surrounded by three additional bags, three in red and one in mottled grey. “Got a tent,” she patted the grey bag, “sleeping bag, sleeping _pad,_ lantern, first-aid kit, eco-friendly low-lather toiletries, a full charge block for my scroll, multiple changes of clothes,” the biggest of the red bags, “an extra person’s worth of food because you didn’t know I was coming,” a cooler bag, “certain personal necessities and you will note I am _wearing,”_ she sprang upright and struck a pose, gesturing grandly towards a foot she’d pointed towards him, “some very excellent and stylish hiking shoes! The sporty appearance of sneakers, the rugged traction of boots! _Hiking shoes.”_

“Wow.” Tai acknowledged the shoes with, if not the admiration Ruby had been hoping for, at least approval. He then surveyed the truck bed in silence for a moment. “You were already packed,” he guessed.

Ruby planted her hands on her hips. “I was already packed.”

Bracing himself, Tai pulled the smallest red bag towards him and peeked in to see what exactly Ruby’s ‘certain personal necessities’ were.

“Ruby? This is an entire bag full of comic books.”

“We have room,” Ruby said swiftly. “Once I get out, we’ll have even more room. Did you wanna bring comics? You probably could.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “I’m good. Okay, cheeky, you pass with _almost_ flying colours. You only missed one thing.”

“What!? But I was so careful!”

“Water bottle,” Tai reminded her. _“Full_ water bottle. No reason not to start out ahead.” He picked her up at the waist and hefted her out of the truck bed, grunting softly. “Oof. Stop this growing thing, would ya? Come on, let’s go back inside, get your water, and say goodbye to the others, then we can get going.”

“Yes!” Ruby cheered, racing towards the front door at what Tai used to think was her top speed.

 _She’s growing in more ways than one,_ he reflected. _Wish you could be here to see our girl…and it’d be nice to have some consistent parental backup, too. Especially now. Half-Gem teenager, here we come…_

* * *

They were cruising down an empty stretch of southbound highway, the City of Vale long vanished behind them, windows down, wind in their hair, fresh green life all around them. Fields and pasture arrayed around fenced palisades of farmhouses and barns were gradually giving way to unkempt prairie dotted with wildflowers and sprawling deciduous woodland. Craning to see out the driver’s side window, Ruby could just glimpse the rising cliffs which housed the derelict Gem stronghold of Beacon. Dead ahead, the Watchful Mountains—more commonly just called the Watchers—loomed large as the truck approached the well-travelled pass that would take them out of the sheltered valley from which Vale took its name.

“So where’re we going?” she called over the sound of the wind rushing past and the classic rock pounding out of the radio.

“More than two hours in and _now_ you ask?” Taiyang chuckled. “Well, once we cross the Divide, we’re gonna follow the mountains along to the southwest until we come to a little town called Coral Hollow. It’s tucked in this little dip between the mountains and the coast. Only way in is by sea or through a narrow pass southeast of the town, unless you fly in, but Valean Huntsmen usually have a pretty good handle on the aerial monster population.” He raised an eyebrow at Ruby.

“Look, I don’t know where the giant bird monster came from, okay?”

“Well, that’s the thing. Something like that hanging around in local airspace works wonders for keeping smaller monsters away. And ever since the Gems popped it, Coral Hollow’s been reporting a higher incidence of monster attacks, with two confirmed sightings of aerial monsters. Best estimate is they were nesting further inland, while your feathered friend was sticking closer to the coast and only just worked its way far enough north to get our attention.”

“Has anyone been hurt?” Ruby asked, alarmed.

“Not so far. Just some property damage and, apparently, a missing cow. Not sure if it was carried off or if it just wandered away from the wreckage of its barn.”

“Huh.”

Taiyang nodded. “Yeah. So what we’re gonna do is scout around the Hollow, try to find the monsters, and if possible track them back to their nests to see if it really is just two of them sharing territory or if there’s a small flock of them cooperating.”

“Then we poof them, bubble them, and take ’em back home!” Ruby crossed her arms behind her head, smirking. “Easy-peasy.”

“Uh, then _I_ pop ’em, we put their Gemstones into some of those containment capsules,” Tai jerked a thumb over his shoulder, “and pass ’em on for someone else to bubble for long-term storage in Beacon’s vault.”

“Right, right, right,” Ruby said hastily. “Obviously, no monster-poofing for Ruby yet, doy. I bet I can bubble them, though! I bubbled myself just fine last week.”

“Are you sure it’s the same thing?”

“…Eh…?” Ruby shrugged, smiling nervously, and Tai laughed, shrugging a little himself.

“Tell you what, as long as you follow my lead, I’ll let you give it a shot. Worst-case scenario, it doesn’t work, we use the capsules, no harm done.”

“Awesome! I’m holding you to that.”

“Draw me up a contract, I’ll sign it.”

They were climbing the foothills now, the world in front of the windshield narrowing as the mountains closed in. Beaming, Ruby reached out and turned up the radio.

* * *

They’d left Patch a little after 8:00. It was nearly 2:30 when Taiyang took a final right turn along the backroads of central Vale and set them climbing another mountain pass. This time, instead of wide green spaces, Ruby could glimpse the glimmer of the sea between the peaks.

“And here we are,” Tai declared, when at last they’d cleared that final leg of the journey. “Coral Hollow.”

It was a pretty little seaside town, a small slew of fishing boats visible out on the water. To Ruby’s surprise, what she could see of the architecture had little in common with the clean white edifices, tiled roofs, and broad boulevards that characterised the commercial and residential districts of Vale. Instead, houses of stone sat cheek-by-jowl with cottages walled in brick and old plaster, with an overall tendency for square-footage over height. Red-brick warehouses crowded around the coast here just as they did back home, but more of the beach had been left. Well, and there was more beach to leave, too; the same glacier that had formed the fjord that trisected Vale had eroded the coastline, but if you went far enough to the north or south the alluvial slopes gave way to short, sheer cliffs. Here, the transition from waterline to _terra firma_ was a smooth sweep of sand and a touch of scrub. A lighthouse jutted up from a little islet maybe a quarter-mile off the coast, its daymark brilliant scarlet bands of varying thickness on a white background.

“It’s beautiful,” Ruby declared of the vista as a whole.

“Now, it’s a working town, not a tourist spot,” Tai warned. “Buuuut, last time I was here there was a great little ice cream parlour down by the beach.”

“Are there shops?”

“Well, yeah, people live here.”

“Dad. You know what I meant.”

“I remember some fun-looking places along Main Street. A little antique store, bookstore, maybe a clothing boutique. Probably a just-in-case souvenir shop.” He grinned at his daughter. “Wanna see how many of ’em we can hit before we have to head back out to make camp?”

A garbled growling noise answered him. Ruby rested a hand on her stomach, reddening. “Lunch first?” she suggested.

* * *

‘All of them’, was the answer, though to be fair, Taiyang’s memory had been correct in telling him there weren’t a great many stores of the fun-and-frivolous variety in the first place. After a lunch of fried fish, Ruby grabbed her father by the wrist and barrelled into the bookshop in a literal whirlwind.

“Dr. Oobleck would love this!” she proclaimed, holding up a book of compiled maritime lore, legends and superstition by a local author. “I’m getting it.”

 _“Hnnnnng_ look at it it’s a tiny motorcycle!” she squealed, peering at a knick-knack in the glass-art gallery (glassblowing was, to Ruby’s surprise, A Thing in Coral Hollow). “Yang needs this.”

“I need _these,”_ she decided in the clothing store, holding a card with a pair of red coral studs pushed through it up to her ear, eyeing the result with satisfaction in a nearby mirror. “Ohh…”

She set the earrings down as another flash of red caught her eye. Crossing the shop, she took hold of the broad, wired brim of a fabric beach hat, its underside deep red and its exterior a brilliant white. A gauzy white ribbon was tied in an elegant bow around the base of the crown, but it was otherwise unadorned.

“Didn’t think you were a hat person,” Taiyang said, patiently waiting with her other purchases in bags hooked over his arm. “It’ll get in the way of your hood.”

Ruby smiled as she turned the hat in her hands, examining it closely. “It’s not for me.”

“If it’s for Qrow, I want photos.”

“Weiss is Atlesian. She probably isn’t used to being out in the sun. She’s got really pale skin, and she looks like a hat person.”

“Didn’t you just meet her?”

“Yeah, but…” Ruby shrugged, checking the price tag. “It’s not _that_ much. And I really think she’ll like it.”

So along it came with a faded blue T-shirt that featured a pixelated cetacean seen from above, jumping through a series of rings on a starry background. Taiyang squinted at it.

“Ah,” he said at length. “We meet again, my childhood archnemesis.”

“Jaune’s got a thing for geeky stuff that isn’t obviously geeky so he can wear it without worrying about made fun of,” Ruby explained. “Plus a lot of his stuff is hand-me-downs with most of his sisters being older than him, so he grew up on retro games.”

Taiyang chuckled. “What, do you keep a list of people’s interests so you can shop for them?”

Ruby blushed. “No,” she said quickly. “That’d be—who overthinks social interaction like that, not me, obviously. Didn’t you say there’d be ice cream?”

* * *

“So, if a dolphin sings in a reef,” Taiyang asked, handing Ruby a waffle cone full of strawberry ice cream, “would you call that _coral_ music?”

Ruby stopped dead in her tracks, gaping up at him in horror. “Dad, no. Why.”

“Dad _yes!”_ Tai countered expertly before taking a huge bite out of his own cone of mint chocolate.

* * *

They made camp in the first low foothills on the Hollow side of the mountains, near enough to the pass that they could quickly pile into the truck to catch up with any monsters that looked to be retreating over the peaks but close enough to the town that they wouldn’t miss an attack. A few scrubby junipers provided a modicum of cover. There was no guarantee their quarry would strike under cover of darkness, but monsters being possessed of both predatory instinct and excellent night vision, it was, Taiyang assured Ruby, quite likely.

“So what we’ll do is set watches,” he said as they sat around their little campfire, mess kits washed as best as possible and packed away again. “Since there’s two of us, we might as well. It’s after eight now, so you can roll into bed anytime between now and nine, but don’t leave it much longer. I’ll take the first watch, then trade off with you at two AM; even fifty-fifty split. Once the clock hits seven or you can’t keep your eyes open anymore, then you can wake me up and catch up on your last few hours of sleep. And, obviously, if you see anything while you’re on watch, wake me up right away, got it? I’ll do the same for you.”

Ruby nodded. “Got it.”

“That’s my girl.” He toasted her with his travel mug of coffee. Ruby did the same with her own plastic cup of cocoa, taking a drink. She couldn’t help but make a face as she did so.

“Shoulda brought your own,” Taiyang teased her, shaking his head. “Ozpin’s turned you into a chocolate snob. Atlas Lass just isn’t good enough for you anymore!”

“It’s okay, really!” Ruby protested. “I mean, okay, it’s really not _good,_ but…it reminds me of when you used to take me camping in the Emerald Forest, and we’d hike the mountain trails together.”

“Yeah.” Tai grinned. “Those were good times. Remember when you tried to chase that mountain goat?”

“I was _seven!_ That was almost half my lifetime ago!”

“I still have pictures,” he warned, sing-song.

“I have pictures of my own!” she shot back. “Do the words _mariachi table-dancing_ mean anything to you?”

Tai paled. “Yang swore she burned those!”

“The ruffly shirt adds a certain,” Ruby pinched her thumb against her first two fingers, gesturing emphatically, _“mm,_ you know?”

“Aw, man. Look, in my defense, that was from before I put two and two together and realised sentient light constructs couldn’t get drunk, okay?”

“I don’t know if I’d really call that a _defense,_ Dad.”

“Argh.” He waved her off good-naturedly, taking another long pull off his coffee. They sat in silence for a time, and slowly Tai’s signature goofy Dad smile turned smaller, softer, as he kept his eyes on the fire.

“…What is it?” Ruby asked finally.

“Just remembering hunting trips with your mom. Y’know, she’s, uh, she’s actually the whole reason I became a Huntsman in the first place.” He laughed quietly, shaking his head.

“Really?” Ruby’s eyes were wide.

“Yep. True fact, your ol’ dad learned to fight monsters to impress a woman. You may now laugh.”

“…No.” Ruby shook her head, eyeing him suspiciously. “There’s more to it than that. Right?”

“Mm, not really. Well.” Tai tipped his head back, looking up at the stars. “I guess…it wasn’t so much that I wanted to impress her as I wanted to spend more time with her. And—and actually be able to contribute, too, not just be some, I don’t know, what’s the term. Millstone? Albatross? I don’t know. She was always going out on missions, and it started to feel like my whole life was just sitting around waiting for her to come home.” Tai lifted one of his shoulders in a shrug.

“But I didn’t want to be one of those guys who gets all prickly about their partners working, and, I mean, hunting was more than just a job to her. It was her duty, her calling. I couldn’t make her give that up. So I started hitting the gym more, enrolled in a martial arts class, and asked Yang to help me get into fighting shape—we got along best out of the other Gems, and I figured she was a hand-to-hand specialist, so she’d be able to get me started without having to worry too much about equipment.”

“Wait-wait-wait. _Yang_ trained you?” Ruby stared. Then she broke down laughing. “Oh _wow!”_

“Aaaand that’s about how it went, yeah.” Tai slapped his hand against his knee, looking rueful. “A few dozen bruises later, I was actually coming along, too. Honestly, the classes did most of the heavy lifting, especially in the beginning, but Yang could teach me to take what I was learning about fighting organics and apply it to fighting Gem monsters instead. Eventually she talked Qrow into helping out and oh boy, did _that_ not go well at first. Do you know how scary it is to be standing there all proud of your yellow belt and then there’s this alien badass coming at you with a freaking _scythe?_ Never tell him I called him a badass, by the way.”

“My lips are sealed, but—c’mon, you and Qrow are best friends!”

“Sure, we are _now._ Back then he thought I was dead weight and distracting your mom from more important things. Learning to fight actually helped a lot with that. Once he realised I wasn’t going to get frustrated and give up, he started to warm up to me a little. And when I got to the point that I could hold my own enough to have his back in a fight, it was like I passed some kind of secret test. Suddenly we were ‘hunting buddies’ and that meant we went out and did stupid things together and called them ‘adventures’.” Taiyang sighed, shaking his head, but there was a fond, wry smile on his lips. “Summer would always be _so_ exasperated when we’d get back. Yang was thrilled, ’cause it meant some of the heat was finally off of her…hey, what’s up?”

Ruby was frowning slightly, watching the fire. It was starting to burn low. “Did Qrow really not like you because you couldn’t fight?”

“…Aw, honey. That’s not quite it.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Thing is, Qrow’s kind of a gatekeeper at heart. You know what that is?”

“Not really?”

“A gatekeeper is someone who sets standards for other people to meet before letting them in. Like a hardcore fan of something that won’t consider anyone else a ‘true fan’ unless they can answer obscure trivia questions. Qrow’s a little bit like that. ‘You must be this tough to be my friend’,” he joked, lifting his hand away from Ruby’s shoulder to hold it level in the air instead, “that kind of thing. And I’m sure you’ve noticed, but a lot of Gems don’t really handle change well, especially when it happens on a timescale that uses days and weeks instead of centuries. So when one day suddenly there was this human nobody tagging around after Summer, I was threatening a status quo he’d been happy with for literally thousands of years.” Tai snickered. “The ‘status Qrow’, if you will.”

Ruby gave him an injured look, and he relented.

“Not the point. I was new, I was strange—well, I was _normal,_ and I don’t think Gems really know what to do with organic-normal, since it changes with the times—it put Qrow on his guard. I don’t know if learning to fight was something where I’d proved myself to him, or if what it really did was make me…I guess, _accessible_ to him? Once I was a fellow fighter, that was something he could understand, you know? Something he could relate to. And once he could do that, it was easier for him to let me in and get to know me, to admit to himself that I was someone worth getting to know. But you?” Tai smiled. “You’re already in. You’re the daughter of his best friends. He’s known you were worth it from the moment he first saw you. I promise you that. Ask him yourself, and I know he’ll tell you the same.”

Ruby blushed, smiling back. “So…you were trained by Yang and Qrow.”

“I’m not sure whether I’d call most of what Qrow and I got up to _training,_ but—hey, they’re training you, right? It’s not that weird.”

“Yeah, but I grew up with them. It’s hard to imagine them training anyone _else._ I kind of assumed you learned from Ozpin, since teaching’s kind of his whole thing.”

Taiyang took a deep breath and let it out sharply. “Oh, I learned from Ozpin, alright.” His jaw worked for a moment, as if he was literally chewing on whatever he was considering. “See,” he finally said, “once Qrow decided I was worth bothering with, that was apparently the cue for Ozpin to take an interest. By which I mean he took me out on a mission and let me walk right into a pit of snake monsters and then stepped back and _watched._ I honestly don’t know if he had that much confidence in my skills or if he was actually trying to murder me and make it look like a tragic accident.”

“Yeah.” Ruby snickered. “Ozpin’s big on practical lessons.”

“No-no-no, listen: Once I fought the snakes off I straight-up asked him if he was trying to kill me and he just _looked_ at me, then said it was the _monsters_ who were trying to kill me and that it was _my_ idea to put myself in a position where they’d be able to. And then he _smiled_ and congratulated me on, and I quote, ‘not being dead yet’.”

“Well, there you go!” Ruby said cheerfully. “C’mon, he’d never _really_ let anything happen to you.”

“…I’m sure he wouldn’t _now,”_ Taiyang allowed, and left it at that.

“So how did Mom react when she found out about your training?”

“Eh…” Tai bobbled his head back and forth to indicate uncertainty. “She was kind of horrified at first. Didn’t want me getting hurt. But I’m not exactly the first organic to take up monster-hunting, and once she managed to wrap her head around the idea that I really did know what I was doing, we wound up having a lot of fun working together. She and Qrow and Yang and even Ozpin made me feel like part of the team. I liked that. I liked it a lot.” He smiled, closing his eyes. “Sometimes we’d go out together, just the two of us. If we wrapped up a job quickly enough, we’d scout around until we found somewhere nice and make a date of it. One time, we had a picnic next to a waterfall. Couldn’t hear a word we were saying to each other, but it was so beautiful. Or there was this tea plantation just outside Mistral, one of those little places that serves its teas on-site with finger-foods, and we wound up spending a fortune on some rare first-flush Matsu Black that I really loved…shopping in a travelling market by a Vacuan oasis, trying to find a scarf with _just_ the right shades of red so it wouldn’t clash with her cloak…”

Ruby wrapped her fingers around the edges of that cloak and pulled it tight around her, drawing her knees against her chest beneath it. The fire wasn’t much more than embers now.

“I’m not deaf to the parallels, you know,” Taiyang said quietly. “I know how you feel, wanting to step up and take part, and I know how _I_ felt when people told me the kinds of things I’ve been telling you. That it’s dangerous, that you’re not ready. But, Ruby, I _wasn’t_ ready. Those snake monsters? I wasn’t being dramatic. They almost killed me. Before that, when Yang and Qrow would sneak me out hunting with them, I lost count of the number of times they had to swoop in and rescue me. There’s no way to get experience without taking risks, but you have to work your way up. I was lucky. I want you to be _better_ than lucky. I want you to be smart and careful. You’ll be a great Huntress someday. Please don’t get yourself hurt trying to be a good-enough Huntress now. I don’t want that, the Gems don’t want that…and your mom wouldn’t want that, either.”

Ruby hugged herself tighter. “I love you, Dad,” she said at last, looking up at him.

Tai reached over and ruffled her hair, then tugged her hood up over her head. “Love you too, rosebud.”

* * *

Ruby was bored. She was _trying_ not to be; this was her first mission with her dad, she didn’t want to mess that up! But sitting up all night, peering through the dark and trying to decide which shadows were just shadows and which were deadly monsters—it had been kind of harrowing for the first hour or so after Taiyang had turned in, the way any proper adventure should be. Three hours in, it was…less than riveting.

She didn’t really get why they couldn’t both just sleep. Gem monsters weren’t really known for subtlety, and Ozpin had said these were Beta-Class, so they’d be about the size of Taiyang’s truck at the small end. Would an experienced Huntsman and the apprentice of three of the greatest Gem Hunters to ever live (and daughter of the _single_ greatest, no less!) _really_ sleep through an attack from something like _that?_

Ruby rolled the weighted baton Tai had given her ‘just in case’ down her lap to her knees and back as she remained perched on a rock maybe ten feet away from their improvised firepit, a pile of ashes long since gone cold. She hummed to herself softly for a few minutes. The atonal little tune ended in a rush of air blown between her lips, as if she were a particularly exasperated horse. She checked the time on her scroll: 5:37. No signal; the mountains made reception tricky. The sky had begun to lighten, blue-black rather than star-studded void, and the shattered moon was slipping towards the horizon. She bit back a yawn.

Suddenly, a flash of movement caught her eye. Ruby’s head whipped around, eyes locking on the spot. Nothing. Or maybe…?

Squinting, Ruby slipped off her little boulder, gripping the handle of the baton in both hands like a baseball bat; they just barely fit together on a space clearly made to leave a single adult hand a bit of room. Slowly, quietly, she crept through the scrub towards the shadow that had caught her attention. When she reached the spot, there was nothing there, and she let out her breath in a sigh that wasn’t quite relief _or_ disappointment.

There was a rustling off to her left, and Ruby wheeled around, raising her baton high. A stand of gnarled bushes some distance away, near the top of a low hill, shook in the still air, and she almost called out for Tai.

_What if it’s just an animal or something and I’m jumping at nothing? He’ll think I’m scared! What if he never lets me hunt with him again?_

Setting her jaw, Ruby inched forward, picking her footing carefully on the gentle slope. When she got close, the shaking stopped. She bent closer—and reeled back with a stifled shriek as a fox streaked out, racing across the rolling landscape like the hounds were after it. Heart pounding, Ruby let her arms drop, breathing heavily as the baton grazed the ground.

“See?” she told herself quietly. “Nothing.”

A rush of compressed air was her only warning before something incredibly heavy swooped down and knocked her to the ground. Ice-cold wiry fur scraped her skin as she went down, and she glimpsed the thing arcing up into the sky again—something like a giant bat?—as she struggled upright. There was the glint of a Gemstone set near the crown of its skull, which was elongated and wolflike; two staring eyes were set in a line on either side of its head, one set reddish-orange, the other electric blue, and all four glowing. She could see all this with excellent clarity, as it was even now coming about and angling for another dive, toothy muzzle pointing right at her and opening wide.

The hill. She’d climbed the hill, she was right in the open—a perfect target. Stupid!

Ruby had just enough time to plant her feet and raise her baton before it was on her again; with a yell, she swung, catching it right in the mouth and knocking it aside. Its teeth caught in the wood of the baton, ripping it from her grasp as the monster tumbled away. Ruby glanced at her empty hands in horrified disbelief. Already the monster was recovering, flapping its leathery wings like an ungainly gull as it righted itself, and Ruby stumbled back in an awkward half-running gait, feet pivoting to turn and flee even as she remained transfixed by the monster rising into the air, its own hateful stare still set firmly on her, baton still hanging from its mouth.

“Agh!”

She cried out as she lost her footing, tripping over her own feet and sprawling to the ground; with a harsh cry of its own, the bat-monster stooped down towards her. Ruby tried to get her feet back under her, scrambling for the leverage to get up and get moving before the monster could reach her. With a sickening clench in her stomach, she realised she wasn’t going to make it.

 _“Dad!”_ she screamed.

As if in answer, there was a blinding light and an explosion of noise and heat. The monster screeched in pain, once again knocked off-course just short of its prey.

Taiyang lunged past Ruby, slinging the shotgun over his back and reaching down to his thigh holsters, drawing a pair of tonfa without breaking stride. He flung himself onto the bat-monster, waling on its underbelly with sharp, rhythmic blows as it feebly attempted to swipe at him with its wings, kicking out with its stunted but wickedly-clawed feet. It didn’t last long under the punishment, letting loose another shriek and collapsing in on itself, light scattering and dissipating as its Gemstone fell to the ground, along with the splintered remains of the baton.

Tai left it all where it lay, jamming his tonfa back into their holsters and rushing over to where Ruby was gingerly picking herself up. He seized her and hugged her close, Ruby gripping him back just as tightly, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asked breathlessly.

“’m fine,” Ruby mumbled into his shirt. “’m okay.”

Her father let out a shuddering sigh, squeezing her before letting go. His face was stern, and Ruby tucked her chin down, huddling into her cloak as she braced herself.

“What were you thinking?” Taiyang demanded.

“I’m sorry,” she said immediately.

“You were supposed to wake me up if you heard anything. That’s the whole reason you set watches, Ruby! So that whoever’s watching can tell everyone else when something’s happening!”

“I was going to but there was a fox and—!”

Another eerie screech split the night, and Tai and Ruby turned to see a second monster wheeling through the air. Not a bat, this time; something very much like the bird monster from before writ small. For a value of ‘small’ that meant it was about the size of a fighter jet.

Tai reached for his belt, pulling a small sphere off of it: a collapsed Gem containment capsule. “You know how to use one of these?”

Ruby nodded, and he pressed it into her hands along with the truck key.

“Store the Gemstone, then go back down to camp and wait in the truck. It’s the safest place you can reach out here. If I’m not back by sunrise, call me; if I don’t answer, call the Gems. Got it?”

“But—”

_“Got it?”_

“Got it,” she said quickly, and Taiyang nodded, a single sharp gesture.

“I love you,” he said. “Be safe.”

He took off at before Ruby could reply, moving at a dead run towards where the bird monster still circled. Or—no, she realised; it was moving closer, even as it drifted in gentle, graceful loops through the sky. No wonder Tai was moving on foot. He’d only have to close a fraction of the distance between them; the monster would do the rest.

On shaky legs, Ruby made her way over to the fallen Gemstone; it was a smooth cabochon, mottled blue-and-white. Sodalite, maybe? She took it in her hands, trying to will a bubble into being. No good. Making the shield around herself and Weiss had been easier than any of her earlier attempts, but it was just too hard to think of that bat-monster as something in need of protection and safe-keeping.

Feeling more miserable than ever, Ruby set the stone down again, retrieving the capsule from her pocket and twisting it open, separating the two halves of the sphere. There were buttons atop the two hollow domes; she held one dome over the Gemstone and clicked the button. Purple-black Gravity Dust activated, drawing the stone up towards the dome; once it was high enough, Ruby held the other dome underneath and clicked it, so that it was being pulled equally in opposite directions, hovering between the domes. Finally, Ruby tilted the whole apparatus sideways and clicked both buttons at once, and the space between the domes sealed with cyan Hard Light Dust, pushed out smoothly to accommodate the size of the Gemstone by dint of the opposing gravitational fields surrounding it. It wasn’t a perfect system, and the Dust would run out eventually, but it only had to last long enough for a Huntsman to pass it on to a Gem who could bubble it and send it through the warps to Beacon.

A harsh, avian skriking pulled her out of her melancholy contemplation of the contained Gemstone, drawing her attention back towards the bird monster. She heard Taiyang’s shotgun bellow once, twice—she couldn’t clearly see the flash from the barrel anymore, though. It was nearly dawn. Which meant she _could,_ to her surprise, see the fight itself. The bird monster was employing similar tactics to the bat, but instead of diving beak-first it pulled up slightly on approach, sailing over Tai and trying to crush him in its huge, brutal talons. It wasn’t having much luck; it was big, but not so big Taiyang couldn’t dodge and he did so fluidly, without apparent difficulty. Reluctantly, Ruby started to turn away. Her father knew what he was doing, and he wouldn’t be happy if he came back to find she’d disobeyed his instructions in a life-or-death situation.

Then something caught her eye. Another of those quick, barely-there flashes of movements, a flickering shadow slithering on the edge of her vision, just like before . Only this time, Ruby had the high ground. This time, Ruby could see the whole area laid out before her, and soon the flickers and flashes resolved into a cohesive image, like the still frames of an old film slowly being cranked up to full speed.

“No,” she breathed, watching the darkly-banded serpent monster slithering through the hills towards the mêlée. “Dad!” she yelled, dropping the capsule and cupping her hands around her mouth. _“Dad!”_

He couldn’t hear her.

“No, no, _no!”_

They were too far away and the snake was too close; even if she used her powers, all she’d do was put herself between the serpent and her father. That wouldn’t even buy him time; he’d be preoccupied trying to help her and then the bird monster would get him.

“Turn around,” she urged. “Listen! Can’t you hear it!?”

Unnoticed, the Gemstone on her sternum began to glow. Ruby lowered her hands and screamed in frustration, looking around desperately. She had to find some way of getting his attention, _something_ that would let him know the danger was coming. Could she throw something—?

The light from her Gemstone flared, and suddenly there was a weight in her right hand, the object she was holding tipping forward alarmingly; she brought up her other hand automatically to brace it, looking down in shock. She was holding a black-and-red gun, its design eerily reminiscent of the sci-fi shooters she liked to play. In fact, it looked suspiciously like her preferred sniper rifle from the game she’d played most recently.

She was _good_ at that game.

Ruby didn’t stop to think, setting her feet apart in the grounded stance Yang had taught her for hand-to-hand, setting the rifle’s stock against her shoulder and lining her eye up with the scope, scanning the ground for the snake monster while trying desperately to recall every piece of realistic advice she might ever have absorbed about firing a gun like this. There wasn’t much. Her heart pounded wildly.

 _That’s gonna throw off the shot,_ she realised as she finally spotted the monster. It was scant yards away from her father and his battle with the bird monster. _This isn’t like the games—I can’t make this!_

_…I have to._

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and squeezed the trigger.

The shot wasn’t as loud as Ruby had expected; maybe Gem guns were quieter. It still sent a sharp _crack_ through the night as the gun slammed back into her tensed shoulder, making her hiss in pain. A glowing projectile streaked through the pre-dawn light, arcing down and burying itself in a tree several paces away from where she’d thought she’d aimed.

Ruby swore, since it seemed like the time for it, and raised the rifle’s barrel again—but Taiyang had whipped around at the sound of the shot, at last noticing the beast slithering up behind him. He tumbled out of the way just as the snake struck. The bird, spotting an opening, dived again with a harsh cry.

“Lead the shot, lead the shot,” Ruby whispered, aiming for a spot just below the bird and firing again. “Yes!”

It recoiled, shrieking, as the bullet clipped its wing, flapping clumsily into the sky once more and buying Tai the time he needed to roll to his feet, facing the snake with his tonfa readied. To Ruby’s shock, however, the bird didn’t try to come about for another go. Instead it beat its wings sharply and arrowed straight for her position.

“Oh no.” Ruby tried to target it, but it was fast enough and now close enough that she couldn’t keep it in the scope; it seemed to understand what she held and wasn’t flying steady, weaving to and fro in almost a zig-zag pattern. Or maybe it couldn’t fly straight, on account of the wounded wing, and wouldn’t that just be the crowner. Maybe when it got close, she could use the rifle as a club?

She lowered the gun, bracing herself. It was her best shot, and it was a really big bird. It wasn’t like she was trying to hit a shapeshifted Qrow. She remembered when she was little, trying to catch the little black bird that was his preferred other form in her hands while he cackled, the sound entirely at home in a corvid throat. She wished he was here. One good swing of his scythe, and this monster would be history…

And then the rifle she held shimmered and changed, growing longer and lighter—at least until a curved, wickedly-sharp blade sprouted from the end furthest from her. The weapon still had a mechanical, futuristic look to it, but otherwise it was the twin of Qrow’s summoned weapon, sized perfectly for her. How—?

“Never mind, goin’ with it!” Ruby declared, hauling back and swinging the scythe with all her might. The bird was nearly on top of her now, letting out a triumphant screech that cut off in a strangled sound as the blade found purchase. Ruby _yanked,_ hard as she could, and the scythe ripped free, tearing the monster almost in half. She staggered back, gasping for breath, and watched as the creature imploded, a Gemstone falling to land at her feet.

“Oh good,” she said faintly, and dropped to the ground, hugging the scythe’s handle to her chest and drawing her knees up.

That was how Tai found her some minutes later when he returned, a capsuled Gemstone in one hand. He looked at her for a long moment. Then he captured the bird monster’s Gemstone, set the two capsules down side-by-side, and came to sit next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders.

“Congratulations,” he said quietly.

“Is it always like this?” she asked, her voice shaky.

“It gets easier. Never stops being scary, if that’s what you mean. But you learn how to push it down. Tune it out. Even get to the point where you enjoy the exertion and the tension and the on-the-fly tactical thinking—but it’s always hard, and it’s always dangerous. Especially for us.”

“Organics.”

“Organics. We have to be just as tough and twice as careful to do the same job as Gems who hunt.”

“I _didn’t_ hear the bat monster,” Ruby said softly. “I heard a fox. The monster snuck up on me.”

“After you climbed a hill going after the fox?”

“…Yeah. Not very ‘smart and careful’ of me, huh?”

“Nope.” Taiyang shook his head, and Ruby’s shoulders slumped. “But I know you’ll do better next time.”

She looked up at him, startled. “Next time?”

He was smiling at her. “Well, yeah. You messed up in the beginning, but you recovered. You were the one who shot to warn me about the snake, right?”

Ruby nodded.

“And then you distracted the bird. Risky move, and I’d be lying if I said I liked knowing it was coming down on you and I couldn’t stop it—but then _you_ stopped it. And that’s, that’s _terrifying_ for me to think about, but…I’m proud of you.”

Ruby beamed. Taiyang chuckled and reached out, tapping the scythe she still cradled. “And I see you figured out how to get your mom’s weapon working. It start out as a rifle?”

“Mmhm!”

“Interesting. For your mom, it was always a shotgun. Glad to see it knows you’re your own person.”

“But how did it turn into a scythe?”

“I’m gonna go ahead and guess you were thinking about Qrow’s scythe. That’s how it worked for your mom.”

“…It…turns into whatever weapon I’m thinking about!?” Ruby’s gaze went distant as she imagined the possibilities.

“Not quite. The way Summer described it, it has to be a weapon belonging to someone you’re close to. And I think it has to be a Gem weapon, you know, a summoned one. Hey, hey!” Taiyang protested with a laugh as Ruby shrugged off his arm and stood, holding out her scythe and squeezing her eyes shut.

“Hah!” Ruby cried triumphantly as the scythe dissolved into light that focused on her wrists, resolving into sharper-edged, red-and-black versions of Yang’s gauntlets. “Whoa, these are heavy!”

Tai shook his head as he got to his feet, going around and collecting the captured Gemstones. He tethered them to his belt, then carefully gathered up the shattered pieces of the baton.

“Hey!” Ruby protested suddenly. “It won’t turn into Ozpin’s cane!”

 _“Summoned_ weapons,” Tai reminded her. “And you have to be able to picture them, so.”

“Oh,” she sighed, disappointed. “I’ll just have to get him to show it to me when we get home.”

“Good luck with that,” he muttered doubtfully. “Hey, I know it’s exciting, Ruby, but that adrenaline high isn’t going to last. We need to get back to camp while the getting’s good.”

She grumbled, but she closed her eyes and frowned in concentration. Her gauntlets vanished.

“So where do we go from here?” she asked as they descended the hill towards their campsite. “Do we try to find their nest sites, like you said on the way?”

“No need. The good news is that three different kinds of monsters would have been living individually; if any of the three had any kind of pack or flock or…whatever you call a group of snakes, there wouldn’t have been _other_ kinds of monsters around, just a bunch of the same type. Solo monsters won’t usually compete with a group. The bad news is that there were three completely different Beta-Class monsters operating in one small area, which means,” Tai said grimly, “local Huntsmen haven’t been keeping a close enough eye on things out here. I’ll make sure to put the word out once we have reception again.”

“Oh.” Ruby tried not to let her disappointment show. “So we’ll be going home?”

“Did I say that?” Tai grinned. “I was thinking we’d catch some sleep and then maybe see what the hiking’s like around here. I bet the place is real pretty when you’re not having to keep an eye out for monsters. We can drive back tomorrow. How’s that sound?”

“Like the best idea either of us have had since yesterday,” Ruby said with feeling.

* * *

“Giant bat,” Taiyang said the next afternoon, setting the capsule down on the counter. “Giant bird. Giant snake.” He fixed Ozpin with a _look_ as he relinquished the last one.

“How nostalgic,” Ozpin said mildly, giving Tai a placid smile as he entered the release sequence and caught the Gemstone, encasing it in a bubble of green energy with a smooth, swift motion. “Hm. Epidote.”

Ruby butted in front of Tai. “I poofed that one!” she said proudly as Ozpin moved on to the bird monster’s Gem.

“Is that so? Well, your bird is a Tiger’s Eye, ironically enough.”

“It…it’s my first monster, Ozpin,” Ruby tried again. “I poofed it. By myself.”

“I see. That must have been harrowing.” Ozpin freed and bubbled the last Gemstone, not looking up as he replied. “I’m glad you’re unharmed.”

Behind Ruby, Taiyang was giving Ozpin another pointed look, one that clearly said _I know what you’re doing, stop it._ Ozpin, however, had called up a holographic window from his scroll, and was updating the database of captured Gemstones.

“Okay?” Ruby waited a moment longer, then sighed. “Yang and Qrow out back?”

“When last I saw them.”

“Alright. I’ll just go tell them I’m back.”

As she headed for the hallway to the back door, Tai’s pointed look became a full-on glare. He reached out and banished the pane Ozpin was working on. Ozpin remained gazing at the space where it had been for a brief moment.

“Young Rose?” he called out.

Ruby immediately popped her head back into view, looking anxious, and Taiyang blanked his face. Ozpin turned to her, meeting her eyes at last, and smiled.

“Well done,” he told her.

Ruby beamed and vanished again, the sound of her footsteps pounding into a run as she raced for the back door.

 _“Qrow! Yang! I summoned my Gem weapon and poofed a monster with it!”_ she hollered; Taiyang heard the door slam open and shut in rapid succession.

“Was that _so damn hard?”_ he demanded, bringing his palms down on the counter as he turned his glare back onto Ozpin. “You _know_ how much your opinion means to her. And _I_ know you’re actually capable of giving a damn, so what the hell was with that unimpressed act!?”

Ozpin met his glare with an even, silent stare, his face utterly expressionless. Outside, they could hear laughing and cheering; a distant but distinct _“That’s my girl!”_ in Qrow’s rough voice and something from Yang that sounded like _“No, no, you gotta tell it_ right _, like…”_ layering over the mile-a-minute piping chatter of Ruby’s excited storytelling.

“Do you ever wonder who they were?” he asked, gesturing at the bubbled Gems before him.

“I…assume that whoever they were, they’d rather not be hurting people,” Taiyang replied, taken aback. “What does that have to do with—?”

“Not necessarily. These might have been allies, they might have been enemies; there’s no way to tell except for the rare occasion when we stumble across someone we used to know. And even then, identifying a specific Gem from just their stone…they would have to have been a close friend.” Ozpin lightly tapped the Tiger’s Eye, setting it spinning lazily in midair. “I assure you, I would not have allowed Ruby to go on believing I was indifferent to her performance. I _am_ proud that she acquitted herself well on your hunt. But this work isn’t about glory and triumph. It is a systematic and seemingly-endless process of cleaning up after a war Qrow and I still vividly remember and always will. Where Qrow finds the hunt cathartic, however, I find it little more than a grim necessity. Thus, Ruby’s enthusiasm occasionally strikes an unfortunate chord with me. I do not fault her for it. She simply doesn’t yet understand.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve considered talking to her?” Taiyang suggested, but without much bite to it.

“She knows the broad strokes of the war. She knows the monsters we fight were once Gems like us. She has the knowledge she needs to eventually understand. The rest is down to growing up. Not something I particularly feel the need to force on her.”

“No,” Tai said quietly, looking down at the countertop. “Me either. …I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

“Nonsense.” Ozpin smiled. “You’re a good father, Taiyang. You thought I was doing wrong by your child. Of course you intervened. What parent wouldn’t do as much?”

“…I know this sounds awful, but it’s kind of surreal to hear a Gem talk parenthood.”

“I daresay that’s more accurate than awful. We don’t really have the context.”

Taiyang shook his head with a bemused little smile, stepping away and heading towards the same hallway Ruby had zipped down. He only got a few paces away before he froze, something going _click_ inside his brain and demanding his attention.

“Oh my _gods,”_ he groaned. “It was a shovel speech.”

“Pardon?”

Taiyang turned on his heel, crossing his arms and staring at Ozpin. “The snake pit. When you shoved me into the deep end on my first hunt with you. It was your twisted-ass version of a shovel speech! ‘So you’re dating my impressionable younger friend? That’s nice; on a completely unrelated note, let’s go off to an undisclosed location together, just the two of us, all alone, so I can demonstrate one of the many ways I could _kill you_ without lifting a finger!’”

“That was a terrible impression,” Ozpin noted, peering over his spectacles with an expression of absolute solemnity. “I neither sound nor speak like that.”

Taiyang stifled an incredulous laugh. “You manipulative bastard!”

“Really, Tai, we just discussed the fact that Gems don’t have parents. How can mine have been unmarried?” He turned back to the counter, once again calling up a window from his scroll. “And as for manipulative, honestly, if I _had_ been trying to impress upon you an acute sense of your own mortality and fragility, standing idly by as you walked under your own power into a den of monsters is about as subtle as a hammer.”

“So you’re saying that isn’t what you were doing?”

“I’m saying that if it was, you certainly took your time figuring it out.” His voice sounded level, but when Taiyang tilted his head to catch Ozpin’s reflection in the kitchen window, he was pretty sure he saw a grin on the Garnet’s face.

“The next time I hear someone complain about their in-laws, I swear to god,” Taiyang muttered, throwing up his hands and resuming his journey to the back door. Outside, a large bird with Qrow’s Gemstone on its back was swooping down on Ruby who, laughing, was swinging a broom towards it as if it were her scythe while Yang cheered.

“Get him! Hit that bird! Make him _bleed!”_

“Wh— _make him_ _bleed?”_ the bird echoed, offended, as it pulled up sharply. “What the hell, Yang?”

“Qrooooow, you’re ruining the scene,” Ruby whined, lowering the broom.

“It’s just kinda dark, that’s all!”

“Said _Qrow Black Pearl,_ scythe-wielding edgelord extraordinaire! You don’t even _have_ blood, you baby, what’s the big deal?”

“Hey Ruby, ever seen a little twerp get backhanded by a giant wing before?”

“No, but she’s sure seen a giant bird get its feathered ass handed to it! Mind if I put my own spin on this take?”

“Oh boy,” Taiyang breathed, pushing the door open and stepping outside. “Do y’all seriously need the second-youngest person on the property to be the grown-up here? Yang, put your hair out; we _cannot_ set the back yard on fire again. Qrow, stop making airplane noises, you’re a bird, that’s stupid. Ruby: keep doing what you’re doing, you’re killing it. Alright, places everyone; let’s take it from the top!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So hey, Fun Fact Time:  
> \- Ruby has a transforming weapon because it used to be Summer’s, and I am not a member of camp scythe-wielding Summer. This way, I could give Ruby a scythe without giving Summer one, while also ensuring that Ruby’s weapon is in fact also a gun.  
> \- I finally figured out what that squiggly blue underline in MS Word is really for: it’s a dad joke detector. No, really. The only one it missed was ‘status Qrow’ and that’s just because Word only knows that ‘Qrow’ has been added to its dictionary and not what it actually means.  
> \- There should be a third fact here because I’m a firm believer in the rule of three, but I don’t actually have one, which is in itself a fact and thus, arguably, this entire run-on sentence is not only a grammatical abomination but also a paradox.
> 
> Comments and critiques are always welcome. Thanks for reading!


	3. Ruby's Corgi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby pays a visit to Weiss's house to introduce her newest family member, and in doing so inadvertently introduces herself to Weiss's own family. In order to clear some things up and maybe make a better impression, too, Ruby tells the story of her most recent mission with the Gems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The SU episode up for adaptation today: Steven's Lion. The precision of said adaptation: negligible. But hey, look, the Gems are actually properly in this one. It's an Easter miracle!

Ruby craned her head back, trying to get a proper look at the mansion in front of her. Based on her window count, it was a three-storey affair, made of pristine white marble that Ruby would bet money came out of the same quarry from which the stones and spires of Beacon had been hewn millennia ago. From Qrow’s less-than-flattering commentary on the subject, that seemed like the kind of prestige-by-proxy the Schnee family would be willing to shell out for. She tried to imagine spending the sort of money it would take to build a house like this and then to use it only two or three times a year.

“Nope,” she said at last, shaking her head as her imagination failed her. “But hey, at least I know this is the right address. Let’s do this.”

She pressed the buzzer by the gate and waited, clasping her hands behind her back. As the silence stretched on, only broken by the intermittent sounds of light traffic behind her, she jiggled her leg nervously, tugging needlessly at her skirt to make sure it was properly in place. She was glad she’d thought to dress up a little, in a black sundress dotted with little rose patterns. She hoped her sandals passed muster; they were nothing special, and rich people had a weird obsession about expensive shoes according to Yang. The hoodie was a non-starter with a dress, so she’d pinned her freshly-laundered cloak on instead. She thought she was presentable enough, but Ruby was usually dressed for just hanging around town or at the beach, ever since she’d appointed herself Weiss’s official guide to Vale. This was the first time she’d ever even visited Vale’s peninsula, which was explicitly marked on every modern map as the Aristocratic District. ‘Fancy’ didn’t really do the place justice.

The intercom crackled to life, startling her. _“Terribly sorry about the delay,”_ a pleasant male voice said. _“State your name and business, please.”_

“Oh, uh,” Ruby held what she hoped was the right button down, “that’s okay! I’m Ruby Rose Quartz—or, uh, I guess technically I’m Ruby Xiao Long but no one actually calls me that—”

 _“Ah!”_ said the voice on the other end of the line. _“You’re Miss Schnee’s young friend, aren’t you? Yes; I see you match her description.”_

Ruby looked around, and this time she noticed the cameras on either side of the gate. Both were pointed squarely at her.

 _“The young mistress is in today,”_ the voice went on. _“Here for a visit, I take it?”_

“If she’s available, yes please!”

_“Her schedule is clear. Come on through.”_

The gate buzzed and swung open. Ruby squared her shoulders and passed through, walking up the driveway and then stepping up onto the flagstone path set around the miniature cul-de-sac in front of the house itself. There was a fountain in the centre that was almost certainly called a water feature. Ornamental hedges framed the manicured lawn like soldiers lined up for inspection, neatly squared-off and regimented. When she reached the front door—front _doors,_ she realised once she was in front of them—the left-hand door opened to reveal an immaculately attired man with a moustache. He was only slightly taller than Ruby, balding, freckled, and with a figure that was stocky verging on portly.

 _It’s a real live butler!_ Ruby clamped her lips together to hide her delight, only a small, stifled squeal escaping her. Either the butler didn’t notice, or had politely declined to do so.

“Welcome, Miss Rose Quartz. Or do you prefer Miss Xiao Long?”

“Um, just Ruby is fine. Please.”

“Miss Ruby.” The butler stepped aside and bowed, gesturing for her to enter. “Please, come in.”

Ruby stepped over the threshold, then hesitated. “Is—is it okay if he comes in, too? He’s super well-behaved, I promise.”

The butler paused in the act of closing the door, a puzzled expression flitting across his face before the professional blandness returned. He peered outside and gasped.

“Oh my _goodness_ yes he can!” he exclaimed, clearing his throat as he brought his upper body back inside and pulled the door wide again, tucking an arm behind his back formally. “That is to say, I don’t see any reason why he shouldn’t. I can’t imagine Miss Schnee will complain, and this is, after all, _her_ household.”

“Oh, thank you. C’mere, boy,” Ruby urged, beckoning. Zwei made a soft _chuff_ sound in the back of his throat and trotted into the foyer, looking around with interest Ruby couldn’t quite share. It was certainly a very tall room, but it was done entirely in stark white and pale shades of blue and grey that made her eyes gloss right over all the impressive bits. It was like a cross between a hospital room and a hotel lobby.

“And just who is this fine fellow?” the butler asked as the corgi trundled over to him and sat, cocking his head.

“We’re calling him Zwei.”

The butler chuckled, bending down and patting the corgi’s head. “Well, hello to you, Zwei.” He straightened. “I am Klein Sieben, Miss Weiss Schnee’s butler. Miss Schnee is currently engaging in a bit of sport in the fencing salon with the lieutenant. If you would follow me, I will take you to her.”

Ruby followed him dutifully up the grand staircase, Zwei close at her heels. “Who’s…the lieutenant?” she asked when they reached the top, turning down the left-hand hallway.

“Lieutenant Winter Schnee is the eldest scion of the Schnee family.”

She took a moment to process that. “Weiss has a _sister?”_

“Indeed. She also has a brother, young Master Whitley. He is not here presently. The lieutenant, however, is staying with us during her leave. Through here. For safety’s sake, please wait until a touch is called.”

Klein opened a door and gestured her through, following her inside. A soft, metallic clattering noise like a whisk bouncing off the side of a bowl caught Ruby’s ears. She was standing in a long room lined with windows. Here, unlike the rest of the house, the floor was parquet, not stone, which deadened the footfalls as two masked figures in white crossed slender swords. Weiss—easily identifiable by her shorter stature and the ponytail fountaining from the back of her mask—broke away and leapt back, narrowly parrying a strike from her opponent as she pursued. Weiss twisted her wrist, directing the point of her opponent’s weapon away and darting in with her own sword. Just before the point made contact, the blade bending, her opponent’s sword swept in and struck her edge-on on her back.

“Touch!” barked a woman’s voice, overlapping with Weiss’s own triumphant exclamation. Both fencers froze in place, then relaxed, lowering their weapons and backing away.

“You made contact first,” Weiss said in a more subdued tone, changing to a reverse grip on her weapon as she reached up and removed her mask, tucking it beneath her arm. “Good match.”

“You’re still underutilising the edge of the blade,” Winter chided her, mirroring her sister’s actions. Her features were sharper, more severe than Weiss’s, her narrower cheekbones giving her face an oval shape that contrasted Weiss’s broader, heart-shaped one. But even at a distance, their relation was unmistakable. “You’re too used to the limitations of the foil. You also overextended your lunge, exposing your back. Left-handedness gives your guard an incredible advantage against most opponents. You can’t let it become something they can exploit.”

Weiss flinched briefly before deliberately straightening her shoulders, setting her jaw. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Be better.” Winter’s eyes flicked past her sister and landed on Ruby. “It seems you have a guest.”

Weiss turned swiftly, eyebrows lifting in surprise, and Ruby waved enthusiastically. “Sorry! I was going to say something, but Klein said it might not be safe, and then you two were talking. Should I have clapped? I kind of wanted to clap, but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know you knew how to swordfight! That’s so cool!”

“Fence,” Weiss said weakly. “I _fence._ Why are—? I mean, I didn’t know you were coming over today.”

Ruby blinked, taken aback. “O-oh. But…we texted about it a few days ago. You invited me over for yesterday but I was going to be on a mission with the Gems, so you said I should come by when we got back…I thought?”

Weiss’s eyes went wide. “Oh…”

“It would seem my arrival the day _before_ yesterday disrupted my sister’s schedule,” Winter said, striding forward. She walked past a small rack with two pairs of differently-shaped fencing swords already hanging from it, thrusting her own weapon into place on it with barely a glance, and came to stand beside Weiss. “It is customary to introduce your guests to one another, Weiss.”

“Yes! Of course! Ruby, uh, this is my older sister Winter. Schnee. Obviously.” She cleared her throat softly. “Winter, this is Ruby Rose Quartz. She is…my friend.”

Winter held out her hand; relieved to find herself on solid footing, Ruby shook it firmly. “It’s nice to meet you, Winter. Um. Can I call you Winter?”

There was a longer pause than Ruby had really hoped for before she replied, “You may,” and cast another expectant look towards Weiss, who started.

“Klein,” Weiss said abruptly, “I believe you were preparing a light tea for us. Would you please see that there is enough for three, and serve us in the small parlour?”

“There will certainly be enough, Miss Schnee. I shall give you time to freshen up, then bring it up immediately.”

“Thank you.”

Klein gave a shallow bow in acknowledgement. “Of course. Miss Ruby, if you will be so good as to accompany me, I will show you to the parlour.”

“One moment,” Winter commanded. She turned her head in a deliberate, almost exaggerated fashion, looking down at Zwei. “Is this _your_ dog, Ruby Rose Quartz?”

“Yes,” Ruby squeaked. _What is it with this family and my full name?_

Weiss gasped as she finally noticed her four-footed guest. “He’s—”

“I know,” Ruby began.

 _“—adorable!”_ She crouched, setting her mask down on the floor and reaching out towards Zwei, scratching behind one of his ears.

“Right!?” Ruby enthused, kneeling and petting down his back.

“He’s pink,” Winter said flatly.

“That too,” Weiss conceded, sounding quite distracted. “Oh my goodness! Oh who’s a good dog. Issit you? Yes it is! Yes it _is!”_

“I see more red than pink,” Ruby demurred. “Like a kind of lightish red, sort of a salmon-y, coral-y type colour.”

“…Klein,” said Winter, “I will be ready for tea in ten minutes. I am confident Weiss will be ready as well.”

Klein pressed his lips together, suppressing a chuckle into a wide smile. “Of course, Lieutenant.”

* * *

“So you are…half-Gem,” Winter repeated, sitting still and straight, her face and voice both totally neutral.

“Yep.”

“You have been raised, collaboratively, by your human father and three Gems, two of whom were high-ranking members of the Rose Rebellion, the leader of which was your mother.”

“Mmhm.”

“Ruby, don’t ‘mmhm’ my sister,” Weiss hissed. Somehow, although Weiss was ostensibly the head of household, she and Ruby had ended up sitting side by side on a small, elegant couch—a ‘loveseat’, apparently—while Winter sat in an armchair angled opposite them. Dressed immaculately in white capris and a midnight-blue halter top, a diamond tennis bracelet looped around one wrist, she looked like an enthroned queen. Her hair was no longer pinned in a twist at the back of her head but instead coiled elegantly atop it in an updo her fencing mask wouldn’t have accommodated: a sleek white crown that only served to enhance the impression that she was some higher authority sitting in judgement over them. Or maybe over Zwei, perched between them and listing towards Weiss as she continued to absently massage his head.

“And you met when…?”

Weiss spoke up. “I lost my scrunchie at the ferry port on Patch after visiting Signal to submit my enrolment paperwork. Ruby found it and gave it back to me.”

“After we fought a giant bird monster,” Ruby chimed in. “Ouch!”

Weiss smoothly slid her leg back into place, crossing her ankles daintily. “There was a brief, monster-related diversion. We rendezvoused with Ruby’s Hunting contacts and executed a tactical retreat once it was clear they were able to contain the situation.”

“I see,” Winter said.

“You can talk _soldier,”_ Ruby said reverently, beaming at Weiss. “Ooh, we should get walkie-talkies!”

“Is this a typical example of your excursions?” Winter inquired, her expression edging out of neutrality towards disapproval.

“No,” Weiss assured her, overlapping with Ruby’s “Eh.”

“There have been no more monster incidents,” Weiss said firmly. “Incident-free outings only. Safe and normal activities in safe and normal locations.”

Winter’s gaze lingered on her for a moment, then locked on Ruby, who widened her eyes and pointed both of her index fingers at Weiss.

“And…the dog.”

“An incident-plentiful outing that did not involve Weiss in any way! Because she was here with you!”

“Wait.” Weiss frowned. “You found him on that mission?”

Ruby brightened. “Oh, yeah! We didn’t actually go that far. Just out to Forever Fall. Qrow was looking over some of the data from the old sensor network and he found this weird radiation pattern that only certain kinds of Gem tech give off. The Gems were betting it was some leftover piece of equipment kinda like the sensors themselves, or maybe an old artefact that got lost in the Gem War, so we went to try and find it and see what it was and why it turned itself back on…”

* * *

“Whoa…” Ruby turned a full three-sixty, stumbling a little as she tried to do it without halting her forward movement—wouldn’t do to let the others think she couldn’t keep up. But the Forest of Forever Fall was _gorgeous,_ sunlight filtering through leaves in dozens of shades of red and dappling the ruddy undergrowth in shadow. “How have I never been here before?”

“It’s not the safest place this side of the Divide,” Qrow said, scanning the trees as if he expected something to jump out at them even as he spoke. But his posture was relaxed, and there was no sign of the crease that usually appeared between his eyes when he was being extra-serious. “Things get drawn here. Some good, some bad, most neither. All dangerous, at least to organics.”

“Way to bring the mood down, Birb-man,” Yang complained. She stretched, crossing her arms behind her head and glancing back at Ruby nonchalantly. “Don’t listen to him. Nothing _that_ bad has ever gone down here.”

“Oh, no,” Qrow drawled. “Just the last, most brutal battle of the whole damn rebellion, no big deal.”

“I meant _recently,_ Qrow, gawd. See, now I look like a massive jerk.”

Ruby, meanwhile, had slowed to a stop. “This was a battlefield?” she asked quietly, her hand hovering over her Gemstone.

Qrow and Yang halted as well, glancing at each other. “’Fraid so, kiddo,” Qrow said, looking solemn as they turned around to face her.

“There’s still…weapons and things,” Yang added, shifting her weight as if uncomfortable. “And…shards. Gem shards. Most of it’s buried by now, but keep an eye out, okay? No impaling yourself!” The Ametrine grinned awkwardly, the expression faltering after a moment.

“You said things were drawn here. Is that why?”

Qrow nodded, and this time, as his eyes swept over the forest, his gaze seemed distant. Like he was seeing something besides the picturesque woodland that had so enchanted Ruby. “This whole place was a wasteland when the fighting ended,” he said softly. “You’d swear nothing had ever been alive here or would be again. When it was all over and Summer got a good look at what was left…and everyone we’d lost…” He shook his head. “I thought she’d never stop crying.”

“But it did grow back,” Ruby prompted. “It…” She frowned. “It wasn’t like this before, was it? Red, I mean.”

“Sure wasn’t.” Qrow smiled crookedly. “We came back years later just shocked that _anything_ was growing, let alone the start of a whole forest in Rose Quartz colours. Even Summer didn’t expect it. Far as I know, no one with her Gem type ever tried using any kind of healing power on anything other than another Gem.”

“Best guess I ever heard asking around was maybe Rose Quartzes were meant to be combat medics and your mom was OP at healing,” Yang said with a shrug. “I know I sure can’t fix things by crying on ’em, but I saw Summer patch up plenty of cracked Gemstones that way.”

“But the whole _forest?_ It’s half the size of _Vale!”_

“Maybe it got into the groundwater or something. I look like a hydrologist to you?”

“You don’t look like someone who knows what a hydrologist is,” Yang declared immediately; Qrow made a face.

“I don’t know what a hydrologist is,” Ruby protested.

“That’s ’cause you’re thirteen and also because you’re cool,” Yang assured her. “Not that being a giant nerd is a bad thing, I mean, hey, we’ve all got our niche to fill and glasses are sexy.”

 _“There_ you all are,” Ozpin’s voice broke in.

Yang rolled her eyes. “Most of the time,” she added.

Ruby couldn’t quite tell if Ozpin’s tone had been exasperated or relieved, and it along with his expression had settled into wry by the time he came into view, cane in one hand and collapsed scroll in the other. “You could have let me know if you needed a rest,” he commented.

“I am made of the same stuff you are, old man,” Yang shot back.

“Eh…” The token Pearl of the group wobbled his hand uncertainly, not looking terribly bothered.

“Declaring yourself a silicate is about as impressive as an organic pointing out they have skin,” Ozpin said rather dubiously, “but you aren’t _wrong,_ I suppose.

She groaned. “Could you _be_ more pedantic?”

He tilted his head thoughtfully. “I could also point out that I am not, strictly speaking, a man.”

Yang cackled. “Not touching that.”

“Good,” Qrow said with a smirk, “’cause he just admitted there’s nothing to touch.”

_“Qrow.”_

“What? You were all smug about it a few seconds ago. Look at you, all removed from material concerns. Maybe you’d have noticed us falling behind if you paid attention to something other than your scroll for once,” Qrow needled him.

“Yes, very funny,” Ozpin droned. “I’d offer to let you take the lead, but the last time you were put in charge of the scanner you got side-tracked arguing with Yang and led us in circles for _five hours.”_

Qrow set his jaw stoically. “I work best alone,” he declared, grim and gruff.

Yang scoffed. “No, you don’t. Either you get bored and end up calling someone to talk the whole time or it’s total radio silence and you’re all weird and clingy when you get back.”

“I do _recon_ work best alone,” Qrow amended. “I am the lone wolf of recon.”

“Don’t you do most of your scouting in bird-form?” Ruby asked, grinning.

“I am a solitary recon eagle!”

“Qrow.”

“Yeah?”

 _“Crow,”_ Ozpin repeated carefully, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. Qrow stared him down in silence for a beat, disbelief flickering over his face before snuffing out, leaving resignation in its wake; conversely, Ozpin’s smile only widened under the scrutiny.

“That’s it,” Qrow growled. “I hate all of you.”

Yang laughed triumphantly, punching her fists together. “Pleasure working with you, gentlegems!”

Ozpin twirled the hand that held his scroll, sketching a shallow bow.

“I hate you most,” Qrow told him. “I just decided.”

“Well, if you’re that bothered, you can always lone-crow it up there instead.”

Qrow sneered, but even Ruby could see it was threatening to turn into a smile; he always seemed to get a kick out of it when Ozpin actually played along. “Maybe I will.” His limbs shimmered curiously in the way that they did before he changed form.

“Or!” Ruby lunged forward, wrapping her arms around one of his; he grunted in surprise, the shimmering fading away. “We could all just…stick together! On the ground!”

(Over Ruby’s head, where she couldn’t see, Ozpin looked at her in concern and then at Qrow, tilting his head just slightly in question. Qrow pressed his lips together and nodded, once, and Ozpin closed his eyes, looking momentarily pained.)

“Come now, my dear,” Ozpin said to Qrow in a light, conciliatory tone. “I don’t mean to chase you off. Surely you’ve a thicker skin than that?”

“Weren’t you the one pointing out we don’t have skin? But hey, if you’re gonna make nice, I guess I can keep my pseudo-skin the way it is for now.”

“Eurgh,” Yang shuddered. “All in favour of us never using the phrase _pseudo-skin_ again?”

 _“Please,”_ Ruby voted, releasing Qrow and stepping away in an awkward half-shuffle.

“Seconded.”

“Oh sure, the guy who regularly crams sugar into a purpose-made digestive system he doesn’t need is grossed out by biology,” Qrow scoffed. “That’s rich.”

“Qrow, I’m _human_ and _I_ thought something was gross about the way you said it,” Ruby pointed out.

“C’mon, Rubes, let’s leave the buzzkill brigade to their bit—bickering,” Yang corrected as Ozpin shot her a pointed glance. “Gimme that scanner,” she urged, reaching out her hand and flexing her fingers. “Me’n Ruby are gonna run point for a bit.”

“Yes,” Ruby whispered, pumping her fist.

Ozpin _tsked_ as he handed over his scroll. “You know, you could use your own if you would let me—”

“My scroll is a communication device slash portable video player. I don’t need you to jailbreak it into a weird super-spy pocket computer. Just fill it up with boring, responsible junk anyway.” She pressed the release, frowning incredulously as the screen loaded. “I mean, what is all this? When have you ever needed a…‘materials analysis’ app? Don’t you have a whole bunch of scientist nerd-buddies with actual machines for that kind of thing?”

“Perhaps when we find the source of the radiation signature we’re supposedly tracking,” Ozpin suggested dryly as he reached out and tapped one of the icons that seemed to have Yang perplexed. “And while I prefer to employ more thorough methods of investigation, any data is better than no data. Now, you’re watching the bar second from left. Once it’s over the blue line, we’re close. If it climbs over the red line, we’re _too_ close for Ruby’s safety.”

“Heard, don’t irradiate Ruby!”

“I’d be mad, but I already have superpowers,” Ruby conceded with a cheerful shrug.

“Onward, Team Awesome! Later, olds,” Yang waved, raising Ozpin’s scroll and walking on. Ruby had to jog a few paces to catch up with her.

“Don’t go too far ahead, _kids!”_ Qrow called.

“Won’t be a problem if you keep up, _gramps!”_

“Really just an astounding display of maturity all around,” Ozpin muttered. “So happy to be spending eternity with these people. Could have moved back in with Oobleck but _no,_ we _need_ you, she said, we’re _family,_ she said…”

* * *

“And this all leads to the pink dog how, exactly?” Winter interrupted. Zwei whined softly as if in response—though that might have had more to do with the fact that Weiss had stopped petting him.

“Forever Fall is a Gem battlefield,” the younger Schnee sister stated, stunned. “It’s a—I have a _painting_ of that forest in my room, I—there’s all kinds of stories and—!”

“Weiss, you’re babbling and you’re slouching. Sit up straight and offer us more tea. It’s going cold.”

She started. “O-of course! Ruby, do you want…?”

“Yes, please,” said Ruby, holding out her cup. “I like this. It’s really nice and sweet.”

“That would be all the sugar you’re adding,” Weiss observed as Ruby plunked cube after cube into her cup and finally stirred, the spoon clattering loudly against the porcelain. “Winter?”

Winter placed her cup within Weiss’s reach. “Thank you. Ruby, you have not answered my question. Please explain what your story has to do with your dog.”

“I told you,” Ruby said, her brow wrinkling in confusion. “I found him on that mission, so I was telling you about the mission. Zwei just hadn’t shown up yet by the part you cut me off at.”

“The part at which I cut you off,” said Winter.

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“I was correcting your grammar.”

Ruby paused. “Zwei had not yet shown up by the part at which you cut me off _from speaking further.”_ She smiled. “Now it doesn’t end with a preposition.”

Weiss froze. Winter stilled. Then, for the first time, Ruby saw the corner of the lieutenant’s lips curve up in the faintest hint of a smile.

“Quite correct,” she said smoothly. “Please, go on.”

Weiss’s eyes went wide, just briefly; then Ruby watched as her shoulders relaxed and her spine made an almost imperceptible shift from stiff to merely straight. She looked properly calm for the first time since Ruby had arrived.

“Well…” Ruby sat back with her teacup, taking a moment to enjoy the thawing atmosphere in the room. “Once Yang and Qrow were done going at each other, me an—Yang and I kinda talked for awhile until we got close enough to the source of the radiation to really start looking…”

* * *

“—so then this creep gets all up in my face, only he’s not looking at my _face,_ you know, and he—whoa ssssh _haha,_ that’s a spike!” Yang declared, eyebrows shooting up almost as fast as the indicator bar on Ozpin’s scroll had.

“Which way?” Ruby asked, peering around her at the screen.

Yang waved the device in an arc in front of her, stopping where the bar was tallest. “Thataway. Gentlemen!” she called. “We have officially found our heading!”

“May I?” Ozpin asked from directly behind them, causing Ruby and Yang both to jump.

“Would you _stop that?”_ Yang demanded, handing over the scroll. “Make some noise next time. Step on a twig. Walk a little heavier, for crying out loud. You’re huge. Move like it.”

“Why should I be louder when you could be more observant? You’ve known me for four thousand years. I shouldn’t be able to startle you so consistently.”

“What about me, though?” Ruby pleaded weakly.

Ozpin (conveniently, Ruby thought) failed to hear her, tapping at his scroll and frowning. “Nothing old enough to be lost in Forever Fall should be giving off such strong readings when it’s still too far-off for us to see.”

“Maybe it’s really small?” Yang suggested as Qrow joined them, stepping up next to Ruby and peering over Ozpin’s shoulder.

The Demantoid tilted his head in concession, though the set of his mouth still indicated dissatisfaction. “Qrow, is the tree cover light enough for you to scout?”

He looked around, clearly dubious. “Not as anything that can’t brachiate.”

Yang clenched her hands into fists, grinning. “Mon-key Qrow! Mon-key Qrow!”

“Screw that, you can shift too. C’mon, let’s see your best lemur.”

“Ooh, red panda! Do a red panda!” Ruby urged.

Yang gasped in exaggerated delight. “The most adorable arboreal.”

“Wea-sel Yang, wea-sel Yang,” Qrow chanted softly.

“Mustelid,” Ozpin corrected him absently, tapping at his scroll. “What I wouldn’t give for a functioning satellite…no matter. We should fan out. Ruby, take this. Remember, if that bar clears the red line—”

“You’ll be Ruby _infra-_ red!”

“—I realise you’re joking, but that doesn’t actually make sense. She already emits low levels of infrared radiation, she isn’t red, and it would require a concentrated dose of _ultraviolet_ radiation to make her so.”

Yang shrugged. “So that one was a little off, but come on. My puns have a pretty low frequency of failure. Oof, you’re ion me pretty hard for that one. Maybe I should try something new, _clear_ -ly nothing on this spectrum is hitting the mark.”

Ozpin observed her in silence.

“It’s like a train wreck,” Qrow whispered to Ruby, who had her free hand pressed to her lips to stifle the giggles. “I can’t look away.”

“Relax,” Yang told Ozpin. “I’m just havin’ muon.”

“I don’t think radiation jokes are quite your métier,” Ozpin informed her solemnly. “Maybe we should photon a new theme.”

“Ayy!” Yang cheered. “Now we’re cookin’ with microwaves!”

“Damn it, it’s spreading,” Qrow groaned. “Be careful, Ruby. Keep an eye on the readout, but don’t forget to pay attention to what’s around you. Call us if you run into trouble.” He clapped a hand heavily on her shoulder and walked off into the forest, hands in his pockets.

“Will do,” Ruby managed through a last snicker, looking down at Ozpin’s scroll before picking her trajectory along the far edge of the stretch they were searching, leaving Ozpin and Yang to make up the middle spokes.

“For real though,” she heard behind her, “stay in your lane, old man.”

“That’s an odd way to pronounce ‘thank you for interrupting, I was running out of material’.”

“The hell I was!”

“Fine. You have until we regroup to figure out what to do with ‘gamma’ and ‘meson’— _without_ unrealistic misuse of object pronouns.”

“Unrealistic, huh? You _will_ regret leaving me that loophole…”

The sounds of their bickering faded as Ruby trekked deeper into her designated patch of forest, doing her best to split her attention between the scroll and the ever-shifting vista of trees. The fallen leaves under her feet had a waxy feel to them, more like oak leaves than the papery texture of the maple leaves that carpeted Patch every autumn, and it made the footing slightly slippery in places where multiple layers of them had accumulated. They slid easily against one another, rather than shredding or crumpling as Ruby expected.

“Leaf slide,” she mused to herself, envisioning it: summertime sledding, if she could only find a good slope. Maybe there’d be something further inland and closer to Beacon, where the elevation was higher. She’d bet Yang would be willing to help her look for a good spot.

Noticing the bar starting to fall, Ruby steered a little more to her right, pushing it back to the point where it had plateaued off in Yang’s hands. Whatever was causing the radiation was putting it out pretty consistently over this area; the readings on Ozpin’s scroll probably wouldn’t change dramatically unless Ruby was right on top of the thing.

_Well, if it turns out to be something dangerous, at least I’m always armed now._

She walked on, bobbling her head gently along with the tune playing inside her head. She kind of wished she’d brought her headphones, but, well, she _was_ supposed to be searching. And, she realised, she’d been sent off _alone._ The Gems had trusted her to pull her weight! Sure, it wasn’t a _hunt,_ but it was still a mission! It counted. Ruby grinned, her gait becoming more of a strut. The strut proved unsustainable, so it became a skip instead. And soon enough the skipping was full-fledged dancing, or, well, more of a still-fledging shimmy, really, but there was a beat and she stomped and hopped and jammed to it with everything she had.

Then her foot caught a patch of layered leaves and slid out from under her, pitching her forward onto the forest floor.

“Oh no!”

The wind knocked right out of her as she caught herself on her forearms, narrowly saving her nose from a rude introduction to a gnarled old tree root. After a frozen moment, she sucked in a deep breath, the pounding in her ears receding as her body wound down from red alert.

“No one saw that, right?” she asked aloud. No way Yang could resist replying if she heard.

“Oh good,” she sighed as a few seconds ticked by with no response. Rolling onto her back, she scowled down at her feet. “Your repeated betrayals have not gone unnoticed, _hiking shoes._ Oh, _ew.”_ She’d just spotted the dirt streaked on her elbows and knees, crumbles of loam and crushed dry leaf clinging to her shirt, shorts and the tops of her socks. And now it would be all over her back, too. At least her cloak was resistant to this kind of thing. _Should probably freshen it up when I get home just in case…_

“Alright, let’s go,” she muttered, rolling over once again and bracing her hands against the ground in preparation to push herself up. In doing so, she found herself face to furry face with an unexpected audience.

_“Gah!”_

The corgi blinked. Then it licked her nose. Ruby scrunched up her face, recoiling in surprise; a startled laugh broke out of her.

“Okay. What’re you doing here, little guy?” She pushed herself away from the ground, leaning back until she was kneeling. “I guess you live here,” she realised, reaching out and running a tentative hand over the corgi’s fur, which was somewhere between a rosy pink and a pale, bluish red. Picking up a couple of fallen leaves, she held them against his fur; one was much too orangey, but the other was a close match. “Now how did that happen? Did Mom turn you red somehow? You’d have to be a pretty old pupper to have hung out with her.”

Ruby pulled back abruptly, dropping the leaves and planting her hands on her knees as she watched the dog warily. “Unless you’re a Gem? Because you gotta tell me if you’re a Gem in a dog body, or looking like a dog, or whatever, and I’m not petting you again until I know.”

The dog watched her blankly for a moment. Then it presented first one flank, still watching her, then another, and finally threw itself down on its side and rolled onto its back, presenting his belly.

“Okay, that is an all-clear on the Gemstone front. You’re a smart boy, aren’t you? Or maybe you just wanted belly rubs,” Ruby reflected, in which case she was presently giving him exactly what he wanted.

A brisk chime caught her attention: Ozpin’s scroll, half-buried in leaves. It must have flown out of her grasp when she’d fallen.

“Oh shoot!” Ruby shot to her feet and stepped around the corgi, picking up the scroll and brushing it off, inspecting it carefully. The hard-light screen flickered worryingly for a moment, but Ruby caught sight of a touch of dirt near one of the projectors and blew sharply across the back of the screen, dislodging it; the hardware itself was unharmed, and the display quickly unscrambled itself. The readout bar she’d been focusing on had fallen to a much lower level, and a message window was superimposed on the graph.

QROW 3:53 PM

Ruby: Yang tried your scroll, got no  
response. Found the thing. Yang  
and Oz broke the thing. Much  
wailing, gnashing of teeth, denial.  
Regroup @ <navpoint>

“Whoops,” Ruby muttered, digging her own scroll out of her pocket.

YANG 3:47 PM

We got it! And Oz broke the crap  
out of it lol TT^TT he’s so lowkey  
pissed rn. Makin that one face u  
know it. Meet up w/ us ASAP  
<navpoint>

3:54 PM

Qrow says you broke it tho??

YANG 3:54 PM

BITCH IS LYING

3:55 PM

k but he says you AND Oz  
both own this one

YANG 3:55 PM

bitch is half-lying

A soft whine distracted Ruby. The corgi had wandered over from its supine position and was now sitting at her feet, gazing up at her imploringly.

“Oh, you’re all alone here,” Ruby whispered sadly. The corgi’s eyes somehow grew even bigger, glossy as if with unshed tears. “Aw. Poor baby…!”

3:56 PM

Yang I’m omw and DO NOT  
RELAY NEXT TEXT

I need help smuggling a doggo  
into the house

also out of the woods and onto  
the boat to get to the island  
where the house is nbd

She snapped a quick picture of the corgi’s sad, adorable face and sent it for good measure, labelling it _DOGGO! :(_

YANG 3:57 PM

!!!

omg

u found a technicolor doggo

one condition

3:57 PM

?

YANG 3:57 PM

Naming rights 

3:57 PM

!?

YANG 3:57 PM

I’mma name it

Ruby made a worried noise in the back of her throat, but another look at the corgi convinced her.

3:58 PM

nnnnngh deal

nothing stupid though!

YANG 3:58 PM

Ruby

bb

who you talkin to?

* * *

“And that’s how I met Zwei!” Ruby declared proudly, setting her scroll down beside the tea tray with a definitive _thwack._

“Excuse me?” Winter asked, staring her down.

“That’s the _whole story?”_ her sister asked in a much sharper tone.

“Yeah? I went to a forest and I found a magic dog so I brought him home. I wasn’t sure what the pet policy was but I figured Yang would be up for helping me get him in the door and once he was there I didn’t think anyone would care enough to matter if he stayed. See? The whole story. I mean, I guess I could have just told you _that,_ now that I’m…thinking about it…sorry!” Ruby rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly, giving a nervous smile.

Weiss’s incredulity ratcheted up a notch. “What do you mean, _magic_ dog? Is _magic_ a thing now?”

“And what about the device the Gems recovered?” Winter demanded. “What was it? How did it break? Was it a threat?”

“Whoa!” Ruby held up her hands. “I thought you guys just wanted me to hurry up and get to the part about Zwei?”

“Well—yes,” Winter said, looking for the first time a touch discomfited, as if Ruby had caught her off-guard.

“O-obviously!” Weiss agreed, flushing.

Ruby’s eyes tracked between them slowly. “Well…there’s still what happened once we got him home.”

* * *

“Look, don’t keep beating yourself up about it—”

“Like you beat up that machine!”

“—and Yang, maybe _start_ beating yourself up a little, ’cause Oz may have broke the chassis but he sure didn’t set the damn _core_ on fire!” Qrow snapped.

“Hey, I was backing up my teammate! I kind of just assume you guys don’t hit stuff that doesn’t need to be hit!”

“Oh, enough,” Ozpin said wearily, switching on the living room light and depositing the broken mess of machinery onto the coffee table.

“Naw, it’s cool,” Yang assured him, her demeanour shifting abruptly from defensive to self-satisfied. “We’re home, so I can stop distracting you.”

“Dis—Yang, where’s Ruby?” Qrow asked flatly.

“Snuck in the back door,” Ozpin reported in a monotone. “On the couch now. Dog.”

“…Dog?”

“Dog,” Ruby confirmed.

“Everyone,” Yang announced, flopping down next to Ruby and gesturing grandly at the dog on her lap, “this is Zwei.”

“Why Zwei?” asked Ruby.

“Because Ein is too impersonal and Drei feels like bragging.” Yang shrugged. “Plus every time it rained you’d just be lying.”

“The dog is pink,” Ozpin stated, expressionless.

“Whuh-oh, monosyllables.” Yang elbowed Ruby, grinning. “Last time I saw him like this was when he found out Summer was pregnant with you. Someone _really_ doesn’t know what to do about small life forms popping up outta nowhere.”

“Why. Is the dog pink.”

“Dude, I just said: Summer. Probably. Iunno, things turning weird shades of red and pink usually has _something_ to do with a Rose Quartz, right?” Suddenly Yang beamed, looking positively angelic. “I’m sure there’s a good _meson_ behind it. Gamma-tically correct enough for you? …Okay, I’ll cop to having _gamma-tically_ queued up, but you set it up to work no matter what it followed that’s on you.”

Ozpin failed to react.

“Damn it. Okay, you guys are my witnesses when he snaps out of it. Boom! I win! Thank you, pinky-pupper,” she crooned, cupping Zwei’s face.

“I still see red,” Ruby admitted, shaking her head. “Don’t know where you guys are getting pink from.”

“Summer Rose-red,” Qrow agreed softly, leaning over the back of the couch to peer closer at Zwei, who saw him and rolled onto his back, suspended now between Ruby’s lap and Yang’s. The Ametrine squealed in delight and set to work scritching at his chest, fingers vanishing in the poof of vibrant fur there. Qrow reached down tentatively and patted him, a tiny smile creeping onto his face.

Ozpin was silent, nodding slightly to himself. After a moment, something inside his head seemed to reboot, and he sighed. “We have a dog now, don’t we?”

“Surrender to the inevitable, Ozpin,” Ruby said in a strangely menacing voice.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just…keep him out of my workroom. And try to keep the fur levels bearable. Please.”

 _“Fur levels,”_ Qrow mocked, smirking. “And vanity rears its ugly head. Don’t worry. We won’t let the little guy go nesting in your scarf collection.”

“You’d best not. Yang, considering we’re both responsible for how this mission turned out, you’re on kitchen detail while I try to see what I can get out of these scraps. It’s clearly Gem tech, but I didn’t recognise the design,” he mused, voice growing softer as he trailed off into thought. “Perhaps one of Merlot’s later works…?”

“Ungh, _cooking,”_ Yang groaned.

“I can do it myself,” Ruby offered, faintly embarrassed; she was, after all, the only one who actually needed to eat.

 _“No,”_ all three Gems responded in unison.

“We all love you, Ruby, but the kitchen is the one place Little Miss Pyro is _less_ likely to burn down the house than you are,” said Qrow, shooting Yang a dubious look.

Yang opened her mouth to retort, but Ruby’s yelp cut her off. They all froze, staring at the point where Ruby’s arm had just vanished elbow-deep into Zwei’s majestic chest-floof. Zwei lifted his head to look at Ruby, whuffling inquisitively.

“Is…this,” Ozpin said at length, pointing gingerly, “another dog thing no one told me about?”

“Nnnnope,” Yang assured him, transfixed.

An anxious, high-pitched whining noise worked its way out of Ruby.

* * *

“Yeah, so we really have no idea how or why I can do this,” Ruby admitted, one arm half-disappeared in Zwei’s chest fur. The Schnee sisters looked horrified. “Really freaked me out at first. It’s cool, though! I mean, obviously I can pull it back out again.” She demonstrated. “And when you think about it, it’s pretty useful, ’cause like, my dog is _also_ a super-cool backpack! Watch-watch-watch!”

She picked up her scroll and reached back into Zwei’s floof, then withdrew her arm and showed off her empty hand. “Ta-da!”

“Okay, I am coming around to the idea that this is more intriguing than horrific,” Weiss said, nodding slowly.

Ruby beamed. “I knew you’d get it! And now I just reach in and…”

“Are you alright, Winter?” Weiss asked, glancing over at her sister.

“Yes,” Winter said stiffly, watching Ruby root around in the pocket dimension inside her pet dog. Zwei, for his part, seemed unbothered, sitting straight and still while he waited for her to be done. “Thank you, I am quite well.”

“Huh.” Ruby frowned. “What in the…?”

She pulled her arm out slowly. She held a small binder in her hand, bound in yellow fabric.

Weiss leaned over. “Is that…a photo album?”

“…Yeah,” Ruby said softly, flipping through it. “It. It’s Mom and Dad. Together. I didn’t know there were so many pictures of them.” One of her hands crept up and cupped her Gemstone.

“They look so happy,” Weiss murmured. “Not like…some people. They must have really loved each other.”

Almost gingerly, Winter stood, walking around to stand behind the loveseat. “I recognise that building. It’s Meerwache Hall.”

“Right!” Weiss realised. “Near the old Houses of Parliament in Mantle.”

“And that’s Lake Matsu, the southern shore. See the floating islands? The area’s rich in Gravity Dust.”

“Oh, I know this one!” Ruby pointed. “It’s the old opera house, down in the historic district, from before they built that bigger one up here in…I don’t actually know, I stopped paying attention, architecture isn’t really my thing but someone told me about it at some point!”

“Dr. Oobleck?” Weiss guessed.

“Might’ve been his housemate, actually. I need to introduce you to them someday, they’re cool. Well—okay, _cool_ isn’t the right word. I like them?”

“These photos are from all over the world,” Winter observed. “Your parents were very well-travelled.”

“Yeah. Dad’s told me stories, but…this is the first time I’ve seen any of these photos. Guess that clinches Zwei having something to do with Mom, huh?” She stifled a sniffle, rubbing her nose self-consciously. “Why would you hide something like this inside a dog, though…?”

“We could go,” Weiss said suddenly; at the sudden attention from Ruby and Winter, she blushed. “I-I mean, some of these were taken here in Vale. We could go. To see where they took the pictures. O-or you could, on your own; I’m sure you’d like some privacy to—!”

Ruby left the album in her lap and threw her arms around Weiss, squishing Zwei in the middle. Once again, the corgi seemed unbothered, merely wriggling until his view of the room was unobstructed.

“I’m sorry!” Ruby exclaimed almost immediately, pulling back. “I just realised we might not be hugging friends yet.”

“Is ‘hugging friends’ a formal category?” Weiss asked, still quite red.

“I don’t actually know,” Ruby admitted. “I’ve known most of my friends since I was born.”

Zwei looked up at Winter and whined. She nodded down at him sympathetically.

“Then I suppose we are,” Weiss said primly, smoothing the skirt of her sundress as she recovered her poise. “In limited intervals on appropriate occasions.”

“Well, new best hugging friend—”

“Why don’t we just shorten that down.”

“Well, _bestie—”_

“Not what I meant.”

“—would you like to accompany me on a grand tour of my parents’ photo spots?” Ruby clasped her hands together.

Weiss’s eyes darted towards Winter. “Well…”

“Oh. Right. Duh. Family first,” Ruby laughed, reddening a little herself.

“It occurs to me that I haven’t visited Vale in quite some time,” Winter interjected. “Nor do I usually take the time to look around the city. Perhaps an outing is in order.”

“Are you sure?”

“Do you mean it?!”

“I would have said if I was not sure, and I am not in the habit of saying things I do not mean,” Winter corrected them both, fixing them with a severe look. “Once we have informed Klein of our departure, we may leave forthwith.”

“Let me go get my hat!” Weiss sprang from the loveseat and headed for the door with a rapid, mincing gait that clearly wanted to develop into a run.

Winter frowned. “She doesn’t wear hats.”

Ruby glanced furtively up at her, closing the album gently. “Guess she does now.”

* * *

And so Ruby found herself showing both Schnee sisters around the city. The old opera house was their first stop. It took a bit of trial and error to find the vantage point from which Summer and Taiyang had taken their photo, but once they had, Ruby posed with her arms outstretched and triumphant while Weiss snapped a picture of her with her scroll.

“I could make a whole new album,” Ruby realised over dinner at a restaurant whose name she couldn’t pronounce. Winter, thankfully, had offered to treat her. An arctic look from the woman was all that had been needed to get Zwei in the door; he sat patiently at Ruby’s feet under the table, seeming to vibrate softly as he panted. “If I take pictures at the same spots Mom and Dad did, and then maybe I could show it to Dad. It’s kind of like recreating them, right? I mean. Aren’t I just the two of them together?”

“Ah,” Winter said, as if something had just been clarified for her. “You’re a romantic.”

“Well, it _is_ romantic,” Weiss argued, spots of colour appearing high on her cheeks as Winter turned to look at her. “She exists because they loved each other,” she pushed on. “It’s…it’s a nice thought.”

Ruby thought she glimpsed an old, buried sadness in Winter’s eyes before the elder sister’s expression firmed again. “Yes, of course. I was not intending to be derisive. My apologies if it seemed otherwise.”

The conversation turned to lighter topics after that, or as light as Winter seemed willing to tolerate (several times she even _smiled,_ to the point Ruby thought she might actually get used to seeing it), but Ruby couldn’t help but think of that small moment of sadness, of how Weiss had stumbled over her words when she’d mentioned how happy Summer and Tai looked in their photos. She didn’t like what she saw when she put those moments together. She hoped she was drawing the wrong connections.

The sun was setting by the time the four of them wrapped up their meal—Zwei having been slipped enough scraps by Weiss and Winter alone to be full twice over, never mind what Ruby had given him—and so they decided on one last destination.

“It looks like the sun’s going down in the photo, too,” Ruby reasoned, lowering the album and gazing approvingly at the old marble fountain and the brick-laid square surrounding it. “More pigeons, though.”

Zwei barked, charging a small cluster of the birds; they took off in a cacophony of wingbeats and alarm calls.

“Alright. Let’s get the shot lined up. There, I think,” Weiss pointed.

“Actually,” Ruby began. “Winter? Would you mind taking a picture of me _and_ Weiss?”

Weiss looked briefly shocked, but covered it swiftly. Winter relinquished another rare smile, this one a little softer.

“Not at all,” she said, taking Weiss’s offered scroll. “Alright…there. Good, now let me know when you’re ready.”

“Ready,” Weiss declared, smiling magazine-perfect.

Ruby hooked an arm around her shoulders, pulling her in. “Ready!”

When Winter snapped the photo, she caught them both beginning to laugh.

“Hardly up to portraiture standards,” she observed as she inspected the result, “but I suppose it will do.”

“Oh— _hey!”_ Weiss held her hat against the crown of her head as one of the birds swooped low. “Stupid pigeon!”

“Not a pigeon,” Ruby said, an ominous feeling running down her spine.

“Then _what?”_

“A crow,” Qrow said flatly, his winged form dissolving and weaving back together into his humanoid shape. “It’s literally my name. What else was I gonna turn into?”

Although she’d seemed quite startled by Qrow’s sudden transformation, Winter recovered her composure swiftly. “Ah. So _you’re_ the Pearl Ruby mentioned.” She handed Weiss her scroll back, eyeing Qrow critically. “I admit, I expected a little more…poise.”

“Did I skip the part where he and Yang traded juvenile insults for like ten minutes?” Ruby asked Weiss out of the corner of her mouth.

“You did not.”

“So, Ruby found another Schnee to hang out with.” Qrow returned Winter’s gesture with equal prejudice. “Ain’t that a kick in the teeth. Still, long as you take after your grandad more than your old man, we shouldn’t have any problems.”

“You might have asked my first name before attacking me over my last,” Winter retorted.

“You’re assuming I care.” He leaned in, smiling. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“Hey!” Weiss protested.

“Qrow!” Ruby clenched her hands into fists, glaring. “Don’t be a jerk! This is Weiss’s sister and she’s nice, okay?”

Qrow’s eyes never left Winter. “Nice, huh?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“The nicest you’ll ever meet,” Winter growled. “First Lieutenant Winter Schnee of the Atlesian Sky Corps.”

“Winter Schnee,” Qrow repeated. “Double whammy. I’m gonna call you Ice Queen.”

“You will call me Lieutenant Schnee,” Winter said sharply. _“If_ you manage to convince me you’re deserving of the respect due a sapient being, I will consider allowing you to call me Winter.”

“Mm.” Qrow made a show of thinking it over. “Ice Queen it is.”

“You _absolute—!”_

“Well, this is going great,” Ruby muttered.

“What even just happened?” Weiss wondered. “Everything was fine. She liked you! You liked her! They met literally a minute ago and now they hate each other? _What?”_

Zwei _foof_ ed from his post between the two girls, observing the drama impassively.

“So, Ruby,” Qrow called, cutting Winter off mid-tirade; now she seethed in silence, clasping her hands tightly behind her back. “Glad to see you’re alive. Not carried off by anything or anyone. Dead in a gutter somewhere.”

“Uh…” Ruby’s eyes narrowed slightly, assessing. “This is the ‘why didn’t you answer your scroll’ speech and the answer is ‘because my scroll didn’t go off’.”

“To be clear, I’m not calling you a liar, I’m just saying we absolutely called you. All of us and your dad, once we made sure you weren’t over at his place.”

“Oh man.” Ruby paled. “How worried is everyone?”

“Concerned but not panicked, in an ascending scale that goes Yang then Oz then Tai. Which, lemme just text them…”

“I don’t know how I didn’t notice you calling,” Ruby fretted. “We’ve been taking photos on our scrolls all afternoon.”

“Playing tour guide?”

“Sort of? I found this in Zwei’s floof compartment.” She held out the photo album. Qrow took it carefully, flipping it open. He exhaled sharply, looking as if he’d been punched in the gut. But as he tentatively leafed through it, his expression softened.

“Heh. I remember taking some of these. So this is what they did with them.” He shook his head. “Y’know, Summer must’ve been to some of these places a dozen times over the millennia, but she swore up and down they looked different with Tai there. Damn, they were such sappy idiots when they were together.”

The stiff set of Winter’s shoulders wavered, then slowly relaxed. “Ruby and Weiss are attempting to recreate some of the pictures.”

Qrow glanced up at her; his gaze lingered for a moment, and he gave a slight nod. “It’s a nice idea.”

“Détente,” Weiss breathed, slumping a little in her relief.

“Dewha?”

“Détente. Ceasefire. Truce. Ugh, if we ever have to introduce my sister to Yang I will actually die.”

“You’ll have to send me some of the pictures,” Qrow told Ruby. “Assuming your scroll’s still working.”

“Well, if it _took_ the pictures—”

“It didn’t,” Weiss realised. “We took all the pictures on _my_ scroll.”

Ruby froze. Then she began digging through her pockets, a look of dread coming over her face. “Oh _no._ My scroll’s gone.”

“Don’t panic,” Winter instructed, holding up a hand. “There’s a chance we’ll be able to find it by retracing our steps. Weiss, try calling Ruby. Ruby, try thinking of the last place you had your scroll.”

Ruby frowned as Weiss dialled. “I know for sure I had it at Weiss’s, because I pulled it out while I was telling you how I found Zwei. Then I set it down on the table…and I picked it up again when I…”

She trailed off as Zwei started vibrating again. Weiss’s gaze darted from her scroll’s display— _Calling Ruby—_ to the corgi and back. “Uh,” she began in a high-pitched voice.

Slowly, they all turned to look at Zwei, who appeared unperturbed as he continued to rumble against the brick. Ruby cautiously got to her knees and pressed her ear against his floof. She could just hear a tinny echo of her ringtone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ngl it actually kills me a little that Forever Fall is north of Beacon instead of south. Like no...no, it's red below green, purple above green, blue right, yellow left, come on. The reference was right there on a silver platter. Vacuo and Mistral got with the program just fine! Do I need to get General Jinjur in here with a map?
> 
> Comments, critiques, etcetera: all are welcome. Thanks for reading! And to those of you who celebrate it, Happy Easter!
> 
> [Edit: reformatted the text conversation to look halfway decent/be at all legible on the mobile site]


	4. Jaune Gets Caffeinated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby introduces Jaune and Pyrrha to some other friends of hers, the four most popular students at Pharos High School: Coco Adel, Fox Alistair, Velvet Scarlatina, and Yatsuhashi Daichi. Jaune, who expects to attend Pharos come autumn, sees an opportunity. But something’s bothering Pyrrha…and she doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. Meanwhile, Ruby soon gets the feeling that there’s an entirely different kind of trouble brewing…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To prevent confusion about ages, lemme clarify: just like in RWBY canon, the Vale school system is a mashup of Western and Japanese norms. Here I’m using the Western autumn-to-spring two-term school year, but high school only lasts three years and starts at roughly age 15 like in Japan. Thus, Pyrrha, Jaune, and as previously mentioned Weiss are preparing to enter high school, but are all fifteen years old—two years older than Ruby, as per.
> 
> Right then! Chapter 4, here we go. I hope you enjoy!

“That settles it.” Jaune planted his hands firmly on the desk, nodding to himself. “Pyrrha?” he called out to the front. “I need you to start dating Coco Adel!”

“There…are…multiple problems with that idea,” Pyrrha replied after a long moment, appearing in the kitchen doorway with a rather nervous smile in place. “Let’s start with the fact that I don’t actually know anyone called Coco Abel, so I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s A _del,_ and it’s fine, you’ll like her. Everyone likes her. See? It’s right here on the chart.” He tapped one of the sheets of loose-leaf notepaper strewn over the desk in front of him.

With some trepidation, Pyrrha crossed the Bakehouse kitchen to the little nook that served as the office; there had been a real office, once, but it and the rest of the upstairs had been converted into an apartment that the Bakehouse’s owner rented out as a side-hustle. “I thought you were working on your late-entry admissions essay for Signal Academy,” she said warily. “Which is why you’re back here during your shift and not up front with me.”

Jaune dismissed her concerns with a wave. “We’re past peak post-lunch business and we’ve still got an hour before post-work customers start coming in. Look, all through middle school there were two clear front-runners for coolest kid, but the favourite was always Coco. Now that she’s at Pharos High, she’s got an undisputed lead. If you’re in with Coco, you’re in, period.”

“This sounds like some fairly intense politics for a high school,” Pyrrha noted, crossing her arms.

“Pyrrha, I have watched literally _dozens_ of teen movies. Trust me, this is nothing. Anyway, I need an in with Coco and even if I was in her league which, let’s face it, I’m not,” he gestured to himself broadly, making a face.

“You really shouldn’t put yourself down like that,” Pyrrha demurred before he could continue. “I think you’re—fine. I mean, you look fine. _Just_ fine.”

“…You okay there, Pyr’? You’re looking kind of—”

“I am also fine!” she exclaimed, her blush darkening. “Go on, you were explaining how this nobody not-important Coco person thinks she can do better than you.”

“Actually, I was saying that she’s _very_ important, probably has no idea who I am, and wouldn’t be into me even if she did because I’m a guy.” Jaune watched Pyrrha a moment longer, still looking sceptical. “You’re sure you’re okay? Ovens have been off for a while, but it is pretty stuffy back here. I could prop the back door open, get some air moving?”

“No, it’s fine.” Pyrrha smiled. “But thank you for offering.”

“Hey, anytime.” Jaune punched his knuckles lightly against her shoulder. “We’re partners, right?”

“Yes. Of course we are.”

“Which brings us back to…”

“Jaune.” The hand that caught his forearm was gentle, but Pyrrha’s voice was firm. “To be clear, you want me to date a girl who goes to a school you _might_ also be going to so that you can use me to make friends with her?”

“Yeah! That’s exactly…” Jaune blinked. “Oh. _Ohhh._ Wow, it sounds so much worse out loud.”

Pyrrha nodded, smiling sadly as she withdrew her hand. “I realise this is a little hypocritical coming from me, but I think you _might_ be overthinking this. Just a little.”

“You really think so?”

“Mmhm.”

Jaune slumped. “I just—look, _all_ of my sisters have gone to Pharos before me. _All of them._ All through middle school I was _Saphron’s brother, Primrose’s brother, Solara’s brother_ —I’m just sick of being the token Arc boy. And Solara _just_ graduated this spring! Every teacher, every coach, and two-thirds of the student body are going to remember my sisters and expect more of _that_ when what they’re getting is _me.”_

“That sounds more like their problem than yours.”

“Sure, except for the part where it’ll define my entire high school experience unless I break the mould as fast as I can.” Jaune shook his head. “If I can just get in good with Coco and her friends, then suddenly I’m on people’s radar for reasons that have nothing to do with my family. I can figure the rest out from there.”

 _“Or_ you could get into Signal. And then we could go to the same school.” Pyrrha brightened. “We might even be classmates!”

“Yeah.” Jaune looked away. “That would be great.”

Her face fell. She opened her mouth, but was interrupted by the sound of the shop bell and a familiar voice.

“Jaune? Pyrrha?”

“Shoot, it’s Friday. End-of-week afternoon snack,” Jaune groaned, popping himself in the forehead with the heel of his hand. “Coming, Ruby! ’Scuse me,” he added more quietly, slipping past her to head out front. “Hey, if you want to make up that break you gave me, I can run the front for a few,” he offered, glancing back over his shoulder. “Only seems fair.”

“I might,” Pyrrha said, fixing a smile on her face. “Thank you.”

When he had gone, Pyrrha turned back to the desk, frowning. She slid Jaune’s makeshift chart out of the way, glancing at the small handful of papers underneath—essay rough drafts, each one, heavily scribbled-over, with large sections crossed out.

* * *

“You _know_ Coco?”

“Oookay, Jaune, let’s all keep calm here.” Ruby eyed the croissant in Jaune’s hands warily; one of its delicious flaky points was aimed at her as if in accusation. “Put the pastry down and we can talk this out.”

“Oh, sorry.” Jaune stuffed the croissant into a bag and pushed it across the counter towards her. “I just didn’t realise you were so…well-connected.”

“My best friend is Weiss Schnee,” Ruby reminded him. “She could buy and sell us.”

“Right, right right right, but she’s—you know—she’s a friend in a different kind of high place. So how _do_ you know Coco?”

“Through her friend Velvet. We’re _FR3_ guildmates. We realised we lived in the same area and that she was only a few years older than me so we met up for real a few months ago.”

“FR…?”

 _“Final Round 3._ The FPS? _Jaune._ You’re a gamer. You know this.”

“I, uh, I actually don’t play shooters.” Jaune shook himself. “Not important! _You.”_

Ruby shrank back from his intense gaze. “Me?”

“You’re already on the inside,” Jaune breathed. “You’re my in!”

“Okay, I think I missed something. You shrug it off like it’s nothing when I mention Weiss but _Coco_ gets your full attention?” Ruby crossed her arms, giving him a stern look. “What’s going on? Oh no. You don’t have a crush on her, do you? Because I’m pretty sure Pyrrha’s more her type than you are.”

“Yeah, I know, but I already realised setting them up was a dead end and also kinda messed up. Friend of a friend of a friend,” Jaune mused, narrowing his eyes in calculation. “Distant enough to have barely heard of me, close enough for an introduction. It’s perfect!”

Ruby’s eyes slid from him to Pyrrha, who’d just stepped out of the kitchen, looking pensive. “Help?”

She shook her head slightly as if to clear it, offering Ruby a bright, slightly bashful smile. “Oh…Jaune has a case of the freshman jitters, that’s all. New school, new classmates, just walking in surrounded by people you don’t know but who know your reputation…as an Arc,” she added, nodding towards Jaune.

“And also people who _do_ know me and _have_ known me for years, because that’s its own problem. I mean, come on, I’m not the only one who ate a crayon in kindergarten, _Quince,_ gods.” He crossed his arms, still grumbling quietly. “…didn’t get stranded climbing the trellis like _someone_ I could mention…”

“Maaaaybe I lucked out with the whole home-schooling/tutoring/immortal-mentorship thing,” Ruby reflected; the door bell chimed, a couple of patrons stepping in behind her. Jaune straightened up hastily, and Ruby grabbed her bag and slid away from the register.

“Good afternoon! Welcome to…”

“Psst. Ruby.”

Pyrrha beckoned Ruby towards the far side of the pastry case, leaning over it to speak to her quietly. “To be perfectly honest, I think Jaune’s getting more worked up over this than he really needs to,” she said bluntly. “I don’t know what it’s like to have older siblings, but if he can just get his Signal application through in time, he might not even be going to the same high school his sisters went to. And even if he _does_ go to Pharos, I can’t believe the social order is as rigid as he’s making it out to be. But I do understand wanting to be among friends, and it’s important to Jaune to make friends with Coco. Do you think you could introduce them?”

“Hmm.” Ruby thought about it, glancing at Jaune consideringly. “Well…they’re both cool people. I mean, Coco’s a traditional kind of cool and Jaune is a Jaune kind of cool, but I guess it could work.”

“All you need to give him is an opening. A chance to try and make a good impression.”

“It’s really that important to him?”

“He drew an entire chart to prove that his chances of having a positive experience at Pharos High depended on befriending Coco Adel. It’s incredibly detailed. I find it both concerning and strangely impressive,” Pyrrha admitted.

Jaune raised a hand in farewell as the other customers left. “Have a nice day!”

“You too!”

“So Jaune,” Ruby said casually, sidling up to the counter and raising an eyebrow in what she hoped was an intriguing fashion. “Remember how I said I was meeting up with Velvet and her friends including one _Coco Adel_ this evening?”

“The…very start of our conversation, yes. Wait…”

She smiled slyly. “Be at the Gunmetal before we arrive there at seven. I’ll make a big thing about recognising you at the bar and invite you over to hang out with us.”

“Bar?” Pyrrha echoed, slightly alarmed.

Ruby waved her off. “They’re super careful about carding and they don’t let you carry more than one drink away from the bar at a time. There’s an old-timey soda fountain and a whole mocktail menu for the underage crowd. It’s mostly a music venue. You get bigger audiences if you can let teens in, too.”

“It still sounds strange…”

“And make sure to bring _chill-_ Jaune,” Ruby urged, passing her hand smoothly over the counter to emphasise _chill._ “This is not a ‘better to try and fail’ scenario. True coolness knows when you’re trying too hard. At least that’s what Velvet says Coco says and Yang agreed when I asked her.”

“Right.” Jaune set his jaw, nodding to himself. “Try to be cool without trying to be cool.”

“You got it.” Ruby gave him a thumbs-up and headed for the door. “Seven o’ clock!” she reminded him, pointing. “The Gunmetal! Chill!”

“Chill like a—a cold thing! Refrigerator!” he called after her as the door swung shut behind her. His shoulders slumped. _“Chill like a refrigerator._ Great start.”

“You panicked,” Pyrrha said soothingly, putting a hand on his shoulder. “It happens.”

“I panicked acting cool around _Ruby,”_ Jaune groaned, burying his face in his hands. “I don’t have a chance being chill-Jaune in front of Coco! Who even _is_ chill-Jaune?” He lowered his hands, spreading them in bewilderment. “Have we met him? Does he exist!?”

“I work with chill-Jaune five days a week,” Pyrrha assured him. “He’s a fun, likeable guy who makes people smile and has regulars asking after him when he’s gone. And…I’ve only really known him for a few months, but I think he’s pretty cool.”

She smiled shyly, and after a moment, Jaune returned the expression. “Yeah. Yeah! I can do this.”

Pyrrha laughed, clapping his shoulder and withdrawing her hand. “That’s the spirit. Oh! Coffeepot’s running low.”

“Yeah, those last customers took four black to go.”

“I’ll get the second machine going.” She turned away, crouching for better access to the lowboy where they kept the cream and coffee grounds.

“Pyrrha?”

“Yes?” she prompted, shoving a couple bottles of non-dairy creamer out of her way.

“How would you feel about going out with me? …Pyrrha? Ground control to Major Pyrrha. Do you copy?”

“Copy!” Pyrrha squeaked, backing out of the fridge and straightening with a bag of coffee grounds in hand. “I copy. S-say again, ground control? Over?”

Jaune laughed, leaning back against the counter. “How would you feel about going out with me, over? Could use a good wingman at the Gunmetal tonight.”

“Wingman,” Pyrrha echoed brightly. “I thought you were ground control.”

“My plane’s in the shop.”

“Oh really?”

“Mmhm. Got into a super-cool dogfight. You should’ve seen it.” Jaune’s expression became more serious. “You don’t have to come. But I’d really appreciate it if you’d be there keep me grounded.”

“Well…” Pyrrha turned her back on him, flipping open the top of the coffee machine and starting to set it up. “I’m not sure I can do that, Jaune.”

“Oh.” Jaune swallowed. “Yeah, okay. That’s fair. It was just a th—”

“After all,” she added lightly as she finished up and turned back, “I can’t be your wingman if you’re grounded, can I? I’m supposed to watch your back…and keep you up in the clouds.”

She squeaked again as he hugged her. “Pyrrha Nikos, you are the most amazing person I’ve ever met.”

Slowly, she relaxed, settling her hands on his back. “You’re not so bad yourself, Jaune Arc.”

* * *

Zwei bounded around Ruby’s feet as she stepped into the house, closing the door behind her and stooping to swoop him up. “Aw! Were you waiting for me?”

He wriggled and licked her face, making her laugh. “Alright, alright. I’m home for now. I’m going back out soon, though. Sorry, buddy.”

She set him down gently on the floor and he immediately scurried a few paces away, then back, then away again, wagging his tail and perking his ears intently.

“You want me to follow you?”

 _“Woof!”_ affirmed Zwei, pivoting around with a heavy leap and dashing off across the living room towards the stairs.

“Is everyone else upstairs?” she asked him, following him up. He stopped outside the first door on the right, looking at her expectantly.

“I think it’s gonna take a _bit_ longer before he eases up on the ‘no dogs in his room’ thing,” Ruby warned; even so, she knocked. “Ozpin? You home?”

“You can come in,” she heard, and wasted no time turning the knob and stepping inside. Ozpin was by the window, pulling back the curtains and letting sunlight spill across the array of rugs on the floor.

“I was attempting to expose our mystery materiel to different wavelengths of light in hopes of learning something new,” he explained, nodding towards the thoroughly-disassembled, partially-slagged remains of the device they’d found in Forever Fall when Ruby had met Zwei. “I’m beginning to think I’ll have to admit defeat; neither Qrow nor I can think of anything we haven’t tried to coax answers out of the blasted thing. Pardon the mess. I haven’t put much effort into tidying up lately.”

The ‘mess’ seemed to consist entirely of a small handful of books, papers, and tools congregated around the wrecked machine; the rest of the worktable which spanned one wall of the room was as clean and orderly as ever. Bookends kept each volume and ledger on the bookshelves upright despite the gaps left by Ozpin’s ongoing research. One filing cabinet had a drawer open about two inches, and what Ruby could see of the files inside were still in their neat accordion-columns. Ozpin reached out and closed it as he passed, heading for the low table where his antique tea-tray sat. He hefted the silver chocolate pot in one hand, eyeing her questioningly.

“No thank you,” Ruby said; Ozpin nodded and flipped over only a single mug, pouring a dark, aromatic stream of cocoa into it. “Are Qrow and Yang not home?”

“Mm.” Ozpin sipped from his mug and returned to his office chair, gesturing at the other, smaller chair which was tucked against the wall by the door. Ruby grabbed it by the top of its back and pulled it towards him as he replied. “I asked Yang to handle a small mission in my stead. Nothing arduous, but she likely won’t be home until late tonight or early tomorrow morning. She decided it was preferable to the alternative of going down to your father’s house and helping him move a couch, which is where Qrow has been for the last hour.”

“…It shouldn’t take an hour to move a couch.”

“No. I suspect he’s avoiding me.” Ozpin smiled wryly. “He’s worried that I’m obsessing, but doesn’t want to come right out and say it in as many words for fear I’ll take it poorly.”

“You _have_ been spending a lot of time up here,” Ruby ventured to say.

“I didn’t say he was _wrong.”_ He laughed softly.“I don’t like having questions I can’t answer. It makes me wonder if I’m missing something important, and you know how I hate to be reminded that I don’t _actually_ know everything there is to know.”

“Hey, no self-awareness!” Ruby complained. “It makes it harder for me and Yang to make fun of you behind your back.” She looked over at the dull greenish-grey of the mysterious machinery. What little she could discern of its shape was just _strange,_ elongated in places that seemed like they should have been compact, rounded edges where she would have expected sharp lines. “Oof. You guys _really_ murdered that thing.”

Ozpin grimaced. “Not our finest moment, I admit. I would have much preferred an intact, operational sample for study. I could have at least figured out how it worked, then, even if its material composition seems determined to elude me.”

“You’re taking this kind of personally.” Ruby raised an eyebrow. “You know the machine isn’t actually challenging you, right?”

“I don’t know _anything._ Which is rather the problem.” He shook his head, releasing a quiet sigh. “But enough of that. To what do I owe the visit?”

“Oh—actually, Zwei led me up here.” Ruby looked over her shoulder to see Zwei lying in a sphinx pose just outside the threshold, watching them. “Aw, li’l loaf. I ran into Velvet earlier and she invited me to hang out with some of her friends tonight, so I was just going to grab a sandwich and get changed and then catch the next airbus back to the city. I’m meeting them at seven; we should be done around…I don’t know, ten or eleven? Before midnight. No big deal.”

So she probably should have run that by her father, and on one level, Ruby knew that. But she didn’t _live_ with her father, and Ozpin was all wise and old and responsible and stuff. It wasn’t _her_ fault if Gems sometimes forgot things like how children were supposed to keep earlier hours than adults and weren’t usually allowed to tear around the city unsupervised after dark. Heck, _Ruby_ only knew that thanks to TV and the Internet. So if she happened to frame her plans like a completely normal thing for a thirteen-year-old to do and that happened to lead to Ozpin nodding slightly and saying something like, “Ah. Thank you for letting me know; I’ll make sure Qrow and Yang know not to worry if they get home before you do.” —well, it wasn’t like she’d _lied_ or anything, now was it?

* * *

“So this is what Valean teenagers do in the evening?” Leaning against the bar, Pyrrha patted one hand anxiously atop the other, looking around the crowded interior of the Gunmetal. The…club, she supposed, was located on the western edge of the Commercial District, where storefronts and office blocks and the occasional apartment complex began to give way to warehouses and processing plants. It would have been nearly impossible to find if there hadn’t been enough foot traffic to follow right to the door.

“Yeah,” Jaune said confidently, nodding as he, too, scanned the crowd. “Definitely. It’s exactly what cool, carefree teenagers with social skills like you and me do all the time. I mean, look at you! You fit right in.”

Pyrrha tugged at the edge of her short denim skirt with a self-consciousness she hadn’t had a moment ago. “These are my normal summer clothes, Jaune. I just have to wear long pants at work because of health code.”

“Oh.” He fiddled with the straw in his soda. “I like your strappy sandals,” he tried again. “You look like a gladiator!”

She had to laugh. “Thanks, Jaune. And I like the elegant simplicity of your T-shirt and jeans.”

Jaune groaned. “ _Too_ simple? Ruby said not to try too hard, did I go too far the other way?”

“No! No. She told you to bring ‘chill-Jaune’, and you did,” Pyrrha assured him. “You look just right to me.”

“Oh my gosh, Jaune! Pyrrha!”

 _“Oh boy this is happening,”_ Jaune whispered, his eyes going wide. “Ruby!” he exclaimed, turning on the spot and beaming; Pyrrha lunged behind him and caught his drink just before it tipped over. “I didn’t know you came here! What a coincidence!”

“Too much, too much,” Pyrrha hissed urgently.

“I mean, of course you hang out here, duh, where—where else would you hang out?” Jaune amended, smiling nervously.

“…Right!” Ruby turned up her smile, threading her way through the handful of standing tables towards them. Like Jaune and Pyrrha, she hadn’t taken particular care to dress up. The only difference between what she wore now and her usual outfit was that her shorts were black denim instead of blue and there were studs in her earlobes; she still wore her familiar red hoodie.

A cluster of three other teens hesitated briefly inside the door, a Faunus girl with rabbit ears already a few paces ahead of them as if she’d been about to follow Ruby when she’d realised the others weren’t with her. She was glancing back uncertainly over her shoulder at a young woman in shades and a beret with a large handbag hooked over her arm.

The girl in the shades pulled them down her nose by the hinge, examining Jaune and Pyrrha closely. She shoved them back into place with a definitive motion and sauntered forward, the boys behind her almost flanking her as she walked. The Faunus girl grinned and kept moving, and it was she who reached them first.

“This is my friend Velvet!” Ruby said, gesturing to her. “The one I game with? And these are her friends Coco, Fox, and Yatsuhashi.”

“Yatsu’s fine,” the taller of the boys interjected.

“Guys, this is Jaune and Pyrrha. I know them from around town. We hang out sometimes.” Usually only when one of them had a break coinciding with Ruby’s visits to the Bakehouse, but no one needed to know that.

“Pyrrha _Nikos,_ right?” Coco guessed, holding out a hand.

Pyrrha wilted a little as she took it, but quickly pasted on a brilliant smile. “You’ve heard of me.”

“Sanctum Middle’s very own record-breaking cross-country champ? This girl won the Matsu Lakeshore Marathon _two days_ before she turned fourteen,” she told the redheaded boy—Fox, then. _“Fourteen._ Some of the runners she beat were _professional.”_

“Impressive,” Fox agreed, looking right past them. Jaune glanced over his shoulder, but didn’t see anything that might have caught his attention.

“Heard Signal Academy snatched you up with a scholarship,” Coco said, planting her hand on her hip. “Shame. Pharos could use an edge. Least we’ve got Fox.” She leaned back and bumped shoulders with him; this too failed to draw his gaze, though he smiled.

“We should grab a table together!” Ruby suggested. “Most people aren’t here in big groups—I bet we can find room for seven closer to the stage!”

“Hang on, drinks first,” Coco said, holding up a finger. “The usual, everyone? I’ll get a Damascus…”

“So far, so good,” Ruby whispered, leaning in towards Jaune. “Keep it up!”

“I didn’t do anything,” he pointed out.

“That’s because you’re playing it cool! Waiting for your moment!”

“Wait for my moment,” he repeated. “Okay. Yeah. I mean, no one likes the guy who just inserts himself into every conversation, right? Baby steps.”

“Baby steps,” Ruby affirmed, then realised the bartender was looking at her expectantly. “Oh! I’ll take a Strawberry Fields. No ice, please!”

“So, Jaune, right?” He turned his head to see Velvet smiling pleasantly at him. “Ruby’s mentioned you a few times. I hear you game?”

“Yeah, now and then. Not shooters like you guys, though. More of a single-player…player.”

Velvet nodded. “Fair dos. So what’s your poison, then?—Thanks,” she added to the bartender, reaching out and grabbing a tumbler of dark, red-tinted liquid with a sprig of mint perched atop it.

“RPGs, mostly,” Jaune admitted.

“Ooh. _Lost Age,”_ she suggested.

“A classic! Great story, cool world, plus the controls were way smoother than they usually are in those point-and-click top-down style games.” He realised the group was moving and followed along, Velvet keeping pace with him. “Have you had a chance to play _Heresy_ yet?”

“That’s…the one with the paladin gets kicked out of their order for consorting with demons, right?”

“Yeah, but obviously it’s the church being way too harsh and not bothering to investigate properly.”

“I figured. You don’t really see a lot of evil protagonists in video games, except for the ‘Whoops, turns out I was on the wrong side all along!’ bit that pops up at the halfway mark sometimes.” Velvet raised her hands and rolled her eyes dramatically.

“Yeah, but I’m kind of getting the feeling that there’s gonna be a ‘join the dark side’ option down the road; sort of a grey-versus-grey morality thing. I’m thinking about trying that on a second playthrough.”

“Huh. Might have to pick it up when it goes on sale. I keep hearing good things.”

“Yatsu, help me make a table,” Coco commanded, handing her glass off to Velvet. Pyrrha shifted chairs out of the way while Coco and Yatsuhashi each grabbed opposite sides of a small table and hauled it a few feet over, matching it edge-to-edge with another. Coco braced a palm on it, and it wobbled slightly. “Eh. Good enough.”

“So who’s playing tonight?” Ruby asked Fox as they sat down.

“Local artist called Souleander. I think they’re a group. Apparently they’re what happens when you put folk and trance together.”

“…What does that even sound like?”

“I guess we’ll know it when we hear it?” Fox shrugged. “I’ll listen to anything once.”

“It’s good,” Yatsuhashi assured them. “Trance and psychedelic folk have actually been around for awhile. The genre’s had time to find its footing. No idea what Souleander’s sound is like, though.”

“Besides, if it’s terrible, at least we’ll get a story out of it,” Coco reasoned. “No social-media blasting, though; that’s tacky. We don’t do tacky. So Pyrrha, you’re new to town. First time here?”

“I didn’t even know this place existed until— _Jaune_ invited me.” Pyrrha caught herself just in time, managing not to glance at Ruby.

“Huh, so you’re the one with his finger on the pulse,” Velvet joked, nudging him with an elbow.

“Heh, yeah, that’s me.” Jaune jammed his straw in his mouth, drawing off it deeply.

“Well, he steered you right.” Coco leaned back in her chair, gesturing around. “This is _the_ place to make _your_ place. Gods know there won’t be time to scope out the competition once school starts up again.”

“Speak not of the evil ones,” Fox intoned, crossing his arms in an X-shape. “It’s still June. No one wants to think about _September,”_ a word he enunciated with deepest disdain.

“You’re both fifteen, right?” Velvet asked, glancing at Pyrrha before returning her attention to Jaune. “Are you going to Signal too, or joining us at Pharos?”

“What, am I mute now, too?” Fox threw up his hands. “Just hallucinating the sound of my own voice?”

“Maybe you’re hallucinating all of our voices, and you’re actually sitting at this table alone,” Yatsuhashi suggested. “Ow!”

Fox wiped his fingers off on the napkin he was using for a coaster. “Not sure I could realistically hallucinate the sound of a lime wedge smacking a talking slab of muscle. Thanks for the reality check.”

“I’m, uh, actually in the middle of trying to apply to Signal,” Jaune said, turning back to Velvet. “But, y’know, they’ve got really high standards and I’m already in the late admission window, so it’s probably gonna be Pharos.”

Pyrrha looked down, stirring her drink around with her straw.

“Not the end of the world,” Coco said languidly. “I wouldn’t even let my parents apply to Signal for me. Their admissions propaganda is full of all kinds of dog-whistle anti-Faunus crap that makes the pearl-clutchers feel good about how their kids won’t be mixing with any _bad influences._ No thanks.”

“Tell us how you really feel,” Fox suggested in a mild tone.

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s legit a great school and a lot of their students are actually pretty cool. So you get a spot, Jaune, you take it. Every seat that goes to a decent person isn’t going to some asshole.”

“But…you decided not to go,” Pyrrha pointed out.

“My choice, my reasons,” was Coco’s brusque reply. “I’ve got a pretty meaty college fund. Long as I keep my grades up, I won’t need Signal’s rep behind me to make good.”

“They’ve been best friends since fifth grade,” Ruby whispered to Pyrrha, looking meaningfully from Coco to Velvet, who was worrying at the mint leaves sticking over the rim of her glass and not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“Oh…”

“Well, either way, Jaune, best of luck to you.” Yatsuhashi raised his glass. “To new friends and new beginnings!”

“Cheesy, Yats’,” Coco complained, but she brought her glass up all the same. Pyrrha lifted hers a little belatedly, looking slightly startled, and Ruby’s broad smile dimmed as she noticed.

* * *

Ruby had mixed feelings about trance folk, as it turned out, but Souleander were nothing if not enthusiastic. An hour later, she slipped off the dance floor, breathing a little heavier and sweating slightly; Yatsuhashi, Velvet, and Coco were still clustered together under the golden spotlights, moving to the music. She headed back to their table at a rushed pace, her steps still timed to the beat.

“I’m gonna go get some air,” she said breathlessly once she’d gulped down the last of her mocktail.

“Yeah, keeping up with Coco isn’t easy,” Fox sympathised. “Take five.”

“Hey, if Pyrrha’s out there, could you make sure she’s okay?” Jaune asked. “I was gonna go check on her in a minute.”

“How long has she been gone?”

“Maybe five minutes? Not long enough to worry, just, you know. Better safe than sorry.”

“Gotcha.”

She threaded her way through the club and stepped outside, taking a deep lungful of night air—not exactly refreshing, since it was summer-muggy and they weren’t in the cleanest part of the city, but at least these were different smells, and the air wasn’t totally still. Looking around, she saw Pyrrha sitting on the curb, chin in her hands and elbows on her knees, her rolled-sleeve jacket draped over her lap to compensate for the way her skirt rode up.

“Oh. Hello, Ruby,” she said as the Gem-hybrid took a seat next to her.

“Hey.” Ruby pulled her legs up to her chest. “How you holding up?”

“I’m fine!” Pyrrha said brightly, not meeting her eyes. “I just needed to take a few minutes out here. I’ll be in shortly.”

“You only came because Jaune asked, didn’t you,” Ruby surmised.

Pyrrha drew in a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out. “I’m not really a…dance club person.”

“Yeah.” Ruby nodded, her chin bouncing off her knees. “I’ve only been here a couple times and it’s always with Velvet and her friends. This is actually the first time they’ve gotten me to dance with them. I don’t…I don’t really dance. But you know, it was fun once I tried it. Even though I’m pretty sure I’m not very good at it.”

Pyrrha shook her head slightly. “How can you enjoy doing something you’re bad at?”

“Well, if someone were standing around grading me on everything I did, I probably couldn’t. But the only people here whose opinions I care about are my friends. They’re not gonna _stop_ being my friends just because I dance like a jellyfish having a seizure.”

Despite herself, Pyrrha snorted with laughter. “There was a _lot_ of flailing,” she admitted, glancing at Ruby sidelong.

Ruby blushed. “Everyone was flailing! It’s not my fault I don’t know how to flail with purpose!”

Pyrrha laughed outright this time, and Ruby joined her. Their mirth slowly subsided into silence, comfortable at first, but with an edge of tension.

“Ruby,” Pyrrha began hesitantly. “Do Coco and the others know about…?”

She gestured vaguely to the area below her collarbone, and Ruby sucked in air around her teeth.

“I’m not sure?” She looked away. “I think maybe Velvet knows, because I don’t always think before I say things over chat and I’ve talked about the Gems before. I never officially told her, and even if she does know I don’t know if she’d tell the others.” Thoughtlessly, she tugged at the front of her hoodie. “I don’t think it would bother them, especially since they’ve already gotten to know me. You and Jaune don’t care, and neither does Weiss. A-and people like Gems, mostly. They did save the planet once!”

“Especially your mother.”

“I’m proud of my mom,” Ruby said defensively.

“I know!” Pyrrha said, raising her hands in placation. “And you should be! But—don’t you ever feel like when people know who she is and that you’re her daughter, that’s all you are to them? Not just _Ruby,_ but _Ruby, half-Gem hybrid, child of the legendary Rose Quartz?”_

“…Or _Pyrrha Nikos, cross-country champion, youngest-ever winner of the Matsu Lakeshore Marathon?”_

“I like being an athlete,” Pyrrha insisted. “Cross-country, track and field—I used to play lacrosse—I’m _good_ at what I do, and I’m proud of that! But every girl who wants to befriend me, every boy who wants to date me, every _school_ that wants to recruit me—! They don’t care about _me;_ they never even _see_ me _._ And none of them even realise that! To them I _am_ my accomplishments.” She buried her face in her hands. “And the institutions are one thing, but the _people…!_

“Jaune was the first person in _years_ who didn’t think of me that way. Do you know what the first thing he said to me was?” She dropped her hands, half-laughing. _“‘Wow, you’re tall!’_ Just that. Even after he found out about everything else, he just told me it was _really cool_ and started talking about how he planned to start an exercise regimen. That’s it! Like it was normal! Like his working to be better at school sports was just the natural next topic on from my already being good at them!”

“Isn’t it?” Ruby asked with a touch of confusion.

“Yes! But there was no envy or resentment or… _hero-worship._ Just two friends, talking.” She smiled wistfully. “And then I met you, and you were the same way. Living in Vale has been amazing so far just because of how rare it is for people to recognise me, but you two are the only people who acted like it wasn’t a big deal when you found out.”

“Weiss wasn’t _too_ weird about it once she got over the shock. It did take a couple hours before she stopped kicking herself for not recognising your name the first time you met, though.”

“And I know it’s not all on them,” Pyrrha admitted. “I’ve never been good at talking to people. And now that they want to talk to me, I don’t know what to say—and it doesn’t even matter, because there’s only one thing they want to talk to me about.”

She looked over her shoulder at the door to the Gunmetal. “Jaune’s really getting along with Coco and Velvet and the rest, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Ruby said at last, feeling oddly reluctant.

She nodded, the motion tight and sharp. “Good. Mission accomplished.” She stood, pulling her jacket back on and straightening her skirt. “Now he doesn’t have to worry about getting into Signal.”

Ruby got to her feet. “Pyrrha, wait—”

“No, it. It’s fine. I’m not—I’m not really myself right now, I’m sorry. I’m going to pay off my tab and let Jaune know I’m leaving so he doesn’t worry.”

_“Pyrrha.”_

But she was already swinging through the Gunmetal’s doorway, ponytail fluttering behind her.

“Oof,” Ruby heard from behind herself; she whirled around to see Coco leaning against the brick wall, her arms crossed over her chest. “You know what they say about eavesdroppers never liking what they hear? Now I feel rude _and_ like a total heel. Think that’s what they call an ‘object lesson’.”

“How long have you been there?”

“Came out right when you were dissing your own moves. I was gonna come hang with you two, but then things got heavy and I didn’t want to butt in. Absolutely do not care about the Gem thing, by the way, don’t worry. Also I kind of just got the speed guide to why making a big thing about it would be a dick move so, yeah.”

It was the closest to _awkward_ that Ruby had ever seen Coco Adel, and she was brazening through it like a pro. She understood a little better now how she could be Velvet’s best friend.

“Your friends are cool people, which is why I don’t care that this whole chance encounter was clearly a set-up.” Ruby cringed, but Coco waved her off. “Thought Jaune was gonna be weird about it at first, but he settled in. I was actually thinking about nudging him towards Velvet until,” she made a gesture as if drawing a circle around the curb, “all _that._ Does he know?”

“Know…?”

“That she’s probably got a diary full of nothing but hearts doodled around every possible combination of their names? I’m going to guess _no,_ from how chill he’s been around her.”

“I don’t know if she actually—”

“Give it a couple years, you’ll know.” She _tsk_ ed, shaking her head. “Those two need to talk. I don’t know if it’s about school, or each other, or _what,_ but they better figure it out. Oh, _hello.”_

As Coco pulled her sunglasses down to get a better look, Ruby turned to see what it was that had gotten her attention. “Wait—is that—?”

“Oh, please be coming this way,” Coco murmured. “Do me a solid while you’re at it and be under twenty and at least a little bi, come on.”

“That’s _Yang,”_ Ruby managed at last, watching the Ametrine turn off into an alleyway, her unmistakable mane of yellow hair rippling behind her. She didn’t seem to have noticed her observers.

“You know her?”

“Yeah, she’s my—uh—she’s one of the Gems I live with. But I thought she was out on a mission! What’s she doing here?”

“Maybe that _is_ what she’s doing.” Coco shrugged, shoving her sunglasses back into place. “Damn. Knew I was piling on too many wishes. Six thousand years is one hell of an age difference.”

“Four thousand,” Ruby corrected her automatically, still watching Yang’s retreating form. “Uh, Coco? Would you mind settling up for me?” She rummaged in a pocket and dug out a pre-loaded card of lien, glancing at it briefly to confirm the amount. “I wanna make sure nothing’s wrong.”

“No problem.” Coco took the card and slipped it into her purse. “You coming back?”

“I don’t know. Don’t wait on me.”

“Alright, then. It’s been real. Text Velvet when you get home, okay? Kinda dicey to be out alone at night.”

“I will. Thanks!” Ruby called, already racing across the street.

* * *

“’Night, Pyrrha,” Jaune heard Coco say; then he found himself face to face with the woman herself, the door swinging shut behind her. The blank stare of her sunglasses seemed to be judging him—or maybe that was his stretched reflection on the polarised lenses.

“You heading out, too?” she asked.

“W—” He gestured helplessly at the door. “Trying to figure out why _Pyrrha’s_ going!”

“Guess she’s just had enough for the night. Not you, though, right? Come have another round. The night’s young.”

Jaune was already shaking his head. “No, something upset her. Look, Coco, it’s been really nice meeting you and Velvet and Yatsu and Fox, but I dragged Pyrrha along to this and if I’m the reason she’s upset I need to fix that.”

He went to push past her towards the door, but she caught his arm. “Wait!”

“I need to—”

Coco cut him off. “Did you pay up?”

“…Oh _shoot.”_

Coco sighed and held out a hand, flexing her fingers impatiently. “Just leave it with me. I’ve got to get Ruby rung out too.”

Jaune frowned as he fumbled through his wallet. “Wait, Ruby left too?”

“Unrelated. We talked before she left; she’s fine. She’ll check in with Velvs once she’s home.”

He handed over the lien. “Um. Thanks. And sorry for ditching you guys. It’s been fun.”

“No, you’re right. Pyrrha’s upset, and _don’t,”_ she warned, holding up a hand, “even _think_ about asking me what’s wrong. That is for her to tell you. If you hadn’t noticed something was up, I’d have given you an earful. If you’d noticed and decided to stick around anyway, I’d have kicked your ass out that door and into the street.” Coco’s chin lowered and lifted, making it clear she was giving him a searching once-over. “You’re good people, Jaune. Go get your girl. Make it right.”

“O-oh, she’s not my—”

“And tell her I’m sorry for drooling over her earlier. If she wants to start over, she’s welcome to hang out any time. So’re you.” She tapped two fingers against her brow and flicked them out, saluting him with a lazy flourish.

Jaune returned the gesture with a bemused little smile and a huff of incredulous laughter; then he was gone, the door slamming closed behind him. In the hectic clamour of the club, no one noticed.

“Alright. Core-four party it is,” Coco told herself, heading for the bar; the bartenders from earlier were still there, but a third had joined them to keep up with the demand. Coco smiled at the pretty, dark-skinned brunette and made a beeline towards her. Up close, she noticed a beauty mark by the young woman’s left eye. Mm, she was sucker for artful asymmetry. “Hey there. I need to close out some of my friends’ tabs…”

* * *

“Pyrrha! Pyrrha, wait up!”

She half-turned around, confused, as she heard the running footsteps pounding up behind her. “Jaune? What are you—I thought you’d be back at the Gunmetal.”

He braced his hands on his thighs, breathing hard. “Hang—hang on a sec. _Whew._ I s-swear I’m in better shape than—than this.” After a moment, he cleared his throat and straightened up. “You walk _really_ fast.”

“It gets me where I’m going,” Pyrrha replied inanely, staring at him. “Jaune, why are you _here?”_

“Because you are. I needed to talk to you.”

“Why? Tonight was about letting you get to know Coco and her friends. You can’t do that if you’re standing on an empty sidewalk with me in the middle of the night!”

“It’s actually only like, eight-thirty, it just feels really late for some reason. Not the point!” He took a deep breath. “I _did_ want to get to know them, and now I have. Uh, Coco says we can come back anytime, by the way, and she wanted me to tell you she was sorry for…‘drooling over you’ earlier.”

Pyrrha looked surprised again; a brief, small smile flickered over her lips before it was eclipsed by her frown. “I thought you were having a good time, though.”

“I thought _you_ were having a good time. Guess I wasn’t paying close enough attention, huh?” He laughed awkwardly, scratching the back of his head.

“It isn’t your job to keep me happy, Jaune.”

“And it’s not your job to be my cheerleader, but that’s exactly what you were tonight. I don’t think I would have had the guts to come alone. Probably would have just chickened out and, I don’t know, shoved an entire frozen pizza in my face while feeling sorry for myself.”

She looked faintly appalled. “Tell me you’ve never actually done that.”

“Uh…just checking, friends can lie to each other as long as it’s nothing important, right?”

_“Jaune!”_

“Hey! It was only plain cheese and Aqua Dellario had just broken up with me over the Internet, in a public post, _when we weren’t even dating to begin with._ There is a time and a place for eating your feelings and that’s one of them, okay?”

“I’ll…have to take your word for it.” She fidgeted. “Look, Jaune, I’m sorry for ruining your evening. I just wasn’t in a dance party mood.”

“Hey.” Jaune put a hand on her shoulder. “You didn’t ruin _anything,_ okay? You can’t have, because nothing got ruined. So there. Now are you going to tell me what’s really wrong, or am I going to have to start guessing? I’ll remind you again that I have _seven_ siblings; I am _really_ good at 20 Questions.”

“Nothing…” She sighed, looking away. “Nothing _is_ wrong, Jaune. I’m just a terrible friend.”

“That’s crazy! You’re—”

He realised, as the light caught her eyes just right, that she was on the edge of tears.

“…Pyrrha? Please talk to me.”

“I should be _happy_ for you,” she whispered hoarsely. “But I’m _not._ The better you got along with _them,_ the worse _I_ felt. Because now you’ll have friends at Pharos and that means you won’t apply to Signal because you never wanted to anyway but you don’t have a reason to anymore and I won’t have—!”

She clapped her hands over her mouth.

“You…you wanted me to embarrass myself in front of Coco?”

“No! Yes? I don’t know!” She stifled a sob, tears beginning to escape down her cheeks. “Gods, I’m such an awful, s-selfish _bitch!_ Y-you deserve b-better than this…”

She felt his hand retreat. She could no longer clearly see him through her wavering vision, but she averted her gaze anyway.

_He shouldn’t have to see me like this. Breaking down because he has other friends? Pathetic. No wonder no one likes the real Pyrrha Nikos. She’s a piece of work._

And then, for the second time that day, Jaune embraced her. He was gentler this time, but he still hugged her tight. A sob worked its way out of her chest.

“There were so many times you could have sabotaged me,” he said quietly. “Even before we got there. Or you could have just stayed home. But you came with me and you stood by me the whole time. Even when you were uncomfortable. You had my back.”

“St-still flying?” she hiccupped, her heart pounding.

“Still flying, wingman. Nothing but clouds as far as the eye can see.”

She’d be mortified later, she was sure, but for now Pyrrha buried her face in Jaune’s shoulder and cried as shame slowly gave way to relief.

* * *

“So what made you think I didn’t want to go to Signal?” Jaune asked as they walked.

“I saw all your essay drafts. You never got past the first paragraph.” Pyrrha’s voice was rough and her eyes were reddened, but the tears had stopped. A quiet, fragile hope sat in her chest where the sobs had been suffocating her. It was going to be okay. Jaune had forgiven her—Jaune, she was beginning to realise, didn’t actually think there was anything to forgive. She hadn’t ruined everything after all. “When you stopped trying and started working on that chart instead…”

“Oh. Okay, I can see how you got here from there.” Jaune sighed. “The truth is, I was just procrastinating. Sure, I…I still don’t think my chances of getting into Signal are all that good, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try. Even Coco said it was a good school. She just cared more about being with her friend.”

Pyrrha held her silence with difficulty, swallowing around the lump in her throat.

“There was just… _so much_ pressure. It felt like I was pinning all my hopes on getting into Signal. Like if I didn’t, my life was basically over, because I’d be the eighth Arc kid at Pharos High, the newest underwhelming sequel that no one was waiting for, and either no one would like me or no one would even notice me—and I’m saying that like I’ve had this sudden realisation that that’s stupid, but it honestly still scares me a little. _But._ Now I’m trying to tell myself that no matter which school I go to, it’s going to be okay, and maybe if I do that enough I won’t have so much trouble believing it. Like Coco said, I can still make good if I graduate from Pharos High, and I’ll have friends there at least until senior year—and maybe I’ll have made new ones by then.”

He looked over at her. “What I’m trying to say is, not getting into Signal doesn’t sound like the end of the world anymore. Which means that… _stupid essay_ can stop being the make-or-break point in my head between option one, being a friendless loser and option two, getting to go to the best school in the kingdom with my best friend in the world. Maybe that’ll make it a little easier to write.”

“…Best friend?” Pyrrha echoed.

“Well. Yeah. I mean, like you said, we haven’t really known each other for a really long time, but…we’re good together. You know? Partners.”

She smiled, and for the first time in far too long it felt free and easy and _real._ “Partners.”

They walked in silence for a few moments.

“So how much longer is it to your place?” Jaune asked.

“My place?”

“Yeah…?”

“…I was following you. I thought this was the way to your house.”

“It’s not.”

“It’s not the way to my aunt’s apartment, either.”

They stopped.

“Where are we actually going?” Jaune asked.

“Well…” Pyrrha pulled out her scroll. “Let’s find out whose place is closest and start there.”

“Good plan. And then we never mention this again.” Jaune typed his address into his own scroll, waiting while the GPS tried to find his current location. “No one ever needs to know we got lost in my hometown.”

“Your hometown is a very big city—but if it makes you feel better, I promise not to tell.”

“You got lost, too.”

 _“I_ am a foreigner. _You_ are a very ineffective tour guide.”

“Hey, showing the new girl around is _Ruby’s_ thing, not mine,” Jaune defended himself. “I don’t make a habit of walking through the Industrial District.”

“Speaking of Ruby, you should remember to thank her for introducing us to her friends,” Pyrrha said. “And, er, you should let her know everything’s alright, too. I _might_ have slightly overshared with her before I left the Gunmetal.”

“Apparently something came up for her too. Coco said she took off right before you did.”

“Really?” Pyrrha frowned. “I hope it wasn’t anything serious…”

“I’ll make sure to ask when I talk to her. Now, let’s see.”

They held their scrolls up next to each other and observed the planned routes wordlessly.

“In my defense,” Pyrrha said at last, “I really wasn’t paying attention to which way I started walking.”

“Yeah…I’m going to search for the nearest bus stop,” Jaune decided, pulling his scroll back and tapping at the screen.

“I’ll look up the schedule.”

“Hurray for teamwork!” Jaune cheered through a grimace.

* * *

Several days passed with no sign of Ruby at the Bakehouse. This wasn’t unheard-of. A frequent customer she might be, but she did still live on the other side of a fairly wide channel, and even with both the ferry service and the airbus, sometimes her schedule just didn’t align with business hours. Several more days after that was a bit more worrying. By the time another Friday had come and gone, Pyrrha and Jaune were beginning to worry, especially when the next day Weiss came in alone and ordered an éclair and a coffee in a distracted tone, a pinched, vexed look on her face.

“Have either of you seen Ruby lately?” she asked abruptly. “Or heard from her?”

“Not since last week,” Pyrrha said, frowning a little herself now. “Has she not been in touch with you?”

“No. Of course, _I_ do not require constant contact with my social intimates. I was simply under the impression that Ruby did. …Does she?” Weiss tacked on, a touch of uncertainty seeping into her voice.

“It’s not like her to leave her friends hanging,” said Jaune. “So _none_ of us have heard from Ruby since last Friday at the latest?”

“I’ve tried to text or call her a few times. She _has_ replied on several occasions, but only to give the bare minimum answer—the last _five_ texts I’ve gotten from her are either ‘Hi’ or just the letter _K!”_ She crossed her arms uncomfortably. “Most of the time her scroll rings through to voicemail and don’t even get me _started_ on when she _does_ pick up! I called her at 4:00—4:00 _PM_ —two days ago and I could swear she’d just woken up when she answered. Not that she said anything useful; she just told me she’d call me back and then hung up on me!”

“You have her number, right?” Pyrrha asked, looking over at Jaune.

“Yeah. Let me try calling her.” Jaune already had his scroll out, dialling. He set it to his ear and they waited, Weiss’s foot tapping softly against the floor.

“Hey, Ruby, it’s Jaune. How’ve you been?”

And then he went dead pale.

“The—really? _Really?_ Oh. _Oh,_ uh, J-Jaune Arc, ma’am. Is Ruby in trouble?”

“What? Who’s got Ruby’s scroll? What’s going on?” Weiss demanded.

“Okay, um…No, ma’am. Just wasn’t expecting to talk to you today. No offense, just—exactly, yeah…No ma’am, no I was not…Yes, my parents and at least three of my sisters…Seven, actually…Yup, I hear that a lot…Okay…Okay, got it. Thank you…you too.”

 _“Jaune!”_ Weiss snapped as he ended the call, looking stunned.

“Ruby’s okay,” he began, which at least caused the set of Pyrrha’s shoulders to relax a little. “So apparently her scroll is ‘evidence’ in some kind of crime…?”

“WHAT!?”

“I was just talking to a Detective Caliph, who’s working…whatever the case is.”

“A _crime?”_ Pyrrha’s own interjection didn’t match Weiss’s for volume, but it was about equal in incredulity. _“Ruby?”_

“That’s it. One of you has to know her address. I’m going over to see her,” Weiss declared.

“Uh, I don’t, actually. _But!”_ he added, peering under the counter beneath the register as Weiss growled and turned towards the door, “I _do_ have a scroll directory, and I’m pretty sure it’s not just the business numbers…yep!”

He dropped it on the counter with a heavy _thump,_ flipping it to the end of the white pages. “Uh, is Xiao Long with an X or a Z? I never looked that close at her card and she pays with pre-loads half the time anyway…”

“X,” Pyrrha and Weiss answered in unison. “X-I-A-O,” Weiss added.

“X-I…Xiao Long, Taiyang!” Jaune announced triumphantly, pulling up the keypad on his scroll. “One listing. Go figure.”

“Put it on speaker,” Pyrrha suggested.

“Can do…”

_“Hello?”_

“Hi, Mr. Xiao Long? This is Jaune Arc. I’m a friend of Ruby’s?”

_“Jaune. Right. We met last fall.”_

“Right, at the fair! Um, so, I tried calling Ruby’s scroll and…?”

 _“And the police answered it. Yeah.”_ There was a strange smacking, snapping sound—Taiyang making some kind of irritated noise with his mouth, Jaune supposed. _“So she’s not hurt and she’s not in any legal trouble, but she is_ incredibly _grounded right now.”_

“But what _happened?”_ Weiss asked, slapping her hand down on the counter.

Taiyang said nothing for a moment. _“And you are?”_

“Weiss Schnee. Ruby’s been—” she seemed to struggle for the words, “blowing me off all week!”

“You’re on speaker, by the way,” Jaune said belatedly.

“Full disclosure, I’m here too.” Pyrrha waved pointlessly at Jaune’s scroll. “My name’s Pyrrha. Hello!”

 _“…Gotcha.”_ Taiyang sighed.

 _He sounds tired,_ Pyrrha mouthed at Jaune, brow creasing in concern.

_“Look, she’s not allowed to leave the house, but I’m not a fan of the take-away-the-scroll school of punishment. Ruby doesn’t actually live with me, but I can give you three the landline number for her mom’s old house and you can ask her all about it. Just don’t pass it around—they’re unlisted for a reason. Tell whoever picks up the line that I told you the number and that it was alright for you to talk to Ruby and they’ll make it happen. Ready? It’s…”_

“Alright,” Jaune said once he’d written it down. “Thank you very much, sir.”

_“No problem. I’m glad Ruby has friends who worry about her. Maybe she’ll remember that next time she thinks about pulling a stunt like this.”_

“Oh, she will,” Weiss vowed; from the increasingly-thunderous look on her face, she appeared convinced that Ruby had gone on a killing spree or something on that order and that, worse, she’d done it for the sole purpose of inconveniencing Weiss.

“Maybe you should go on break for this,” Pyrrha said as Jaune hung up and began to dial the number Taiyang had given them. “You and Weiss can take a table and talk to Ruby. I’ll listen in from here in case anyone comes in.”

“Good idea.”

Weiss snatched the slip of paper out of Jaune’s hand and headed for one of the little tables set along the storefront window. “You do your thing. I’ll get us past the warden. I’m not waiting one _second_ longer than I have to for this. And bring my coffee!” she called.

By the time Jaune made it over, Ruby was already on the line.

“Thank you,” Weiss said, taking her coffee from him. “Now Ruby can explain to us exactly why the only person picking up her scroll and actually _talking to us_ lately is a _police officer.”_

 _“Oh boy,”_ Ruby groaned. _“I said I was sorry…”_

“Apologies aren’t explanations, _young Rose,”_ Weiss said; she smirked as Ruby made a strangled noise in response.

 _“Okay! Okay! I’ll talk. Just_ never. Call me that. Again. _…So when we were at the Gunmetal, Coco and I noticed Yang across the street, and that was really weird because I knew Yang was supposed to be on a mission that night. So I figured I’d follow her, and then one thing led to another and we_ might _have started a teeny-tiny…bar brawl…?”_

It was hard to say which of the three occupants of the Juniper Bakehouse looked more appalled.

“And…that’s why the police have your scroll?” Jaune asked weakly.

_“Oh no. The police didn’t get involved until last night…”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Point: an all-ages bar/club/concert venue thing sounds really weird and kind of like maybe it doesn't exist. Counterpoint: Gunmetal is a kind of bronze. *Looks pointedly at Buffy fans* brrrooonnzzze  
> my point is that it's not an unprecedented conceit and now it's an homage so there you go
> 
> Anyway, fun fact, this was supposed to be Chapter 6. But then it insisted on overlapping with my planned Chapter 4, the events of which MUST precede my planned Chapter 5.  
> “That’s fine,” I said. “I wasn’t going to get a long chapter by drawing from Lars and the Cool Kids anyway. Might as well mash it in with Chapter 4, I like interwoven narratives, let’s do this.”  
> But then Jaune decided he wasn’t quite as behind on his canonical character development timeline as I thought he was and passed the conflict baton on to Pyrrha? Which somehow added like 4,000 words because it turns out Pyrrha Is Not Fine?? And then that turned what should have been the B plot into the A plot??? And now there’s teen drama going on and I’ve had to slap a shipping tag on my gen fic, which, okay, kind of thought that if I accidentally’d a ship along the way it would be White Rose but here we are. (That's not to say you should necessarily expect White Rose or any other ship to happen, just that I'm aware of how ambiguously I seem to be writing their relationship. I don't really set out to write romance; it either happens or it doesn't, so I mostly avoid building the plot around who's in love with whom. We'll see what happens with those two and everyone else down the road.)
> 
> tl;dr C6 is C4 now which means C4 is going to be C5 and C5 got pushed out to C6. Behold the A+ strategic mind behind the “quality content” you may or may not have subscribed for, I don’t know how or if you choose to track fic updates, none of my business.
> 
> If you liked what you read, consider leaving a comment! If you in fact did not like what you read but have constructive ideas for improvement, may I further suggest ~*comments*~! Feedback is always appreciated. Thanks for reading, and see you next time!


	5. Ruby Without A Cause

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So why is Yang walking around the city at night if she's supposed to be out on a mission? It takes a little wheedling, but Ruby gets her answer and an offer to tag along as well. Turns out Yang's version of a night out involves a lot more property damage than Ruby's. Apparently, that's what makes it fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *stares mutely at word count*  
> …Look, in my defense, fight scenes take up a lot of words, okay? At least the way I write them. I’m not good at writing them. I cut an entire extra scene to prune the numbers back! And this one chapter is still more than a quarter of the total length of the fic. Welp, I tried.
> 
> Bad pun title was mandatory ’cause Yang. It’s not funny. I am not a funny person, I know this, I keep trying anyway, and now here we are. Let’s move on to the actual story now. As always, I hope you enjoy!

Hearing a noise behind her, Yang wheeled around and grabbed her would-be assailant, slamming them up against the nearest wall. They were an awfully small attacker, she realised as she moved. Some organics never grew very tall, or maybe she was facing something like an Aquamarine or—

_“Wait-Yang-it’s-me-it’s-me-I’m-sorry!”_

—a Rose Quartz, her fingers clutching at Yang’s arms as her feet dangled a few inches above the pavement, held up by the front of her hoodie.

“Ruby!?”

“Hey.” Ruby smiled weakly. “Could you maybe put me down now?”

“Oh, whoops!” Yang released her grip. Ruby grunted as her feet hit the ground, tugging at her hoodie until it lay right again. “Sorry! Didn’t expect you to sneak up on me like that. Didn’t expect you to be here at all, actually. …Why _are_ you here?”

“To ask you that!” Ruby planted her hands on her hips. “Ozpin said he sent you on a mission!”

“Well…yeah.” Yang scoffed, spreading her hands and looking around the dingy alley in which they stood. “What else would I be doing here? I’m patrolling.”

“Patrolling.”

“Yup.”

“For Gem monsters.”

“…Yup.”

“In the _Industrial District.”_

“Hey, you mock, but there’s a spot a couple blocks from here where all the buildings are newer because some kind of freaky bullfrog thing flattened them like, a century ago.” Yang pursed her lips and shrugged, as if to challenge Ruby to prove her wrong.

Ruby crossed her arms. “If he sent you here, that must mean there’ve been reports of monster activity in the area.”

“Obviously, yeah.”

“So he gave me the all-clear to spend the whole night basically right next door to where people have been seeing monsters.”

“That’s pretty on-brand for Ozpin,” Yang pointed out.

“No it isn’t! Letting me put _myself_ in danger because I thought I could handle something I couldn’t is on-brand for Ozpin! Letting me and a bunch of other people hang out inside the blast radius of potential disaster? He would have at _least_ said something vague and cryptic about hoping it was worth it!”

“…Maybe he…didn’t think about where teenagers usually go to have fun and…y’know…thought you’d be farther away than you were. Which was where, by the way?”

“The Gunmetal. It’s a club,” Ruby explained at Yang’s blank look. Confusion morphed into delight.

 _“Rubes!”_ She lunged forward, squeezing Ruby tight. “Aw, you’re all grown up and going _clubbing!_ Your Quartz side is still goin’ strong!”

“Yang,” Ruby wheezed. “Air.”

“Right, yeah, the oxygen thing.” Yang backed off, ruffling Ruby’s hair as she did so. Ruby scowled and brushed the wayward strands back into place.

“No hugging me when I’m being suspicious of you! You stand there and be accused!”

“Look, Ruby, I don’t know what to tell you.” Yang shrugged. “Who knows why Ozpin does anything? He’s basically what would happen if a really pretentious riddle magically came to life. Like I’m supposed to understand his weird alien logic?”

“Wh—you’re _all_ aliens! _I’m_ half-alien!”

“Nuh-uh!” Yang held her right forearm upright like she was going to pump her fist, slapping her Gemstone proudly. “This baby’s a hundred percent Remnant-formed and finished, same as you.”

“That doesn’t—I’m _saying_ I don’t believe you!”

“Well that just hurts.” Yang crossed her arms. “I thought we had a special bond, but here you are chewing me out for following orders. _Ours not to reason why,_ Ruby.”

Ruby appeared singularly unimpressed, arching a sceptical eyebrow. “Right. Because if there’s one thing Yang Ametrine is known for, it’s following every order, no hesitation. No questions asked. _Bliiiiind_ obedience.”

Yang froze. “Damn it,” she sighed, slumping and shaking her head. “I dug myself too deep. I have been caught in my own web of lies!” She shook her fist at the sky.

“Aha!” Ruby pointed at her dramatically. “Now give up your secrets, deceiver!”

“Okay but first, for the record, no one ordered me to do anything,” Yang said. “Oz asked me to patrol the border along Forever Fall and up near Beacon as a favour to him.” She fidgeted anxiously with her hair. “Listen, you can _not_ tell Qrow and Ozpin that I just blew off doing this thing for them. Please.”

“Well—if you were asked to patrol, why didn’t you just do it?” Ruby asked. “There must have been a reason.”

“Yes and no?” Yang sighed. “Look, I know I joke about this kind of thing a lot, but…Ozpin’s paranoid. _Actually_ paranoid. Not in the ‘jumps at his own shadow, triple-checks the locks’ kind of way, I mean in the ‘sees patterns that aren’t there, convinces himself of conspiracy theories’ way.”

She looked down at her feet, her shoulders rolling forward. “I don’t know if he’s always been like that, or if the war or something before that got in his head and messed him up, but this happens _every time_ he comes across something he can’t explain right away. He shuts himself up in his room, buries himself in research and asks us all to do extra patrols while reminding us _over and over again_ that it’s ‘probably nothing’ but ‘just in case’…and guess what, it’s _always_ nothing.”

“Isn’t he just being careful, though?”

“Yeah, well, that brand of careful gets real old after four thousand years of it. I don’t need to spend however many weeks or months it’s going to be until Ozpin solves his new pet mystery constantly looking over my shoulder when he can’t even tell me what I’m supposed to be looking _for.”_ She sighed, a short, sharp sound of frustration. “If he had some solid proof to work from, I’d take this every bit as seriously as he wants, but I’m _so_ over taking cues from his hyperactive danger-sense.”

Ruby frowned. “But why _not_ just patrol, if that’ll help? Is it really that much extra work?”

“Ugh, it’s work and it’s a _drag,”_ Yang groaned. “Going over the same route for literally _hours_ for no reason other than to make Ozpin feel better, when I can just say I did it and get the exact same result? No thanks. Besides, it’s not like I’m not still working. I’m easily bored; I’m not actually _lazy._ Huge difference.”

“What kind of work can you get done at—” Ruby checked her scroll. “Eight-twenty in the Industrial District?”

“Organic relations,” Yang replied promptly.

“Do what now?”

Yang put a hand on her hip, tossing her hair and smiling. “What, you thought all I did was look amazing and punch things? I’ll have you know that I am the social-networking expert of the family! Well, okay, I mean, your dad has the organic Huntsmen nailed down and Qrow keeps in touch with some of his old war buddies, but _I_ keep us in touch with the locals. And the best place to do that is in bars, dives, and clubs. Preferably the ones on the wrong side of the tracks.”

“When you say ‘locals’…”

“Criminals,” Yang admitted. “I mean criminals. _And_ the people who have to put up with them. Ruby, Ruby.” She put an arm around Ruby’s shoulders. “Lemme paint you a picture. See, _we_ have what you might call superpowers. And we use them to help people. Which makes us…”

“Awesome?”

“Yyyyyeah but also no. C’mon. _Helping people._ Using _superpowers.”_

“Superheroes,” Ruby breathed.

Yang snapped her fingers. “There it is! See? I _am_ patrolling. I am making the rounds and doing what I can to make Vale a safer place.” She opened her arms wide. “How is that not my job?”

“Um. Isn’t that kind of…”

“Dangerous?”

“Illegal,” Ruby finished. “I was gonna say illegal.”

 _“Pssh.”_ Yang flapped a hand dismissively. “Only if I get caught.”

“If I _had_ said _dangerous,_ would you have said ‘Only if I get hurt’?”

“No,” Yang said immediately, adding, “because I don’t _get_ hurt doing this. Gems don’t usually have much of a reason to turn to crime, so I’m mostly dealing with organics. I have to work harder to keep from hurting them than to keep them from hurting me.”

Ruby went quiet, considering.

“So…are you going to tell?” Yang asked tentatively.

“Take me with you.”

“Come again?”

Ruby met her eyes, determined. “Take me with you. I want to see what you do! I want to help.”

“I…I don’t know, Ruby.” Yang frowned, uncertain in a way Ruby rarely saw her. “I mean, _you_ could still get hurt.”

It stung to hear that, but Ruby pushed past it. “Same as on normal missions, and even Dad let me go on one of those. You even said this wasn’t as dangerous!”

“Well, yeah, but I’m a hard light construct and you’re all…squishy.” She crossed her arms. “But I mean, you _are_ a Gem…and it’s not like you’ve never been to a club before…”

Ruby waited.

“…Okay!” Yang decided, punching her fists together. “But first we need to get you something to wear.”

Ruby looked down at herself. “What’s wrong with this?”

“Jean shorts and sneakers?” Yang snorted. “This Gunmetal place must be super low-key. We’re gonna need to get you into something that’ll let you blend in at the kind of places we’re going. And you’ll need to be able to show off your Gemstone, too.”

It was hard to say if Ruby was hugging her _self_ defensively, or her hoodie. “But I like my clothes…”

“Hey. I promise I won’t make you wear anything you aren’t comfortable with, but we’re not gonna be able to pass you off as anything but a human tween in that outfit.” Yang shrugged. “It’s not an insult. Just a fact. You wanna come with me or not?”

“I do!”

“Okay, then.” Yang’s form shimmered and rippled. Ruby averted her eyes before the moment of transformation itself; intellectually, she understood that the Gems’ bodies were made up of light, but watching them break down all raw and formless was vaguely unsettling to her.

“Get on,” she heard, and looked back in time to see a bright-gold dragon rear up on her hind legs, digging her talons into a brick wall. “We’re going shopping.”

Yang’s lilac eyes looked down at her from high above; she twitched her tail, beckoning, and Ruby climbed up using her spines as handholds. Once she had a good grip, Yang eased her way up the wall and heaved her large body onto the rooftop, stretching her wings and rolling her long neck with a satisfied grunt.

“Ready?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder.

“Ready!” Ruby gave her a thumbs up before hunkering down, keeping her body low against Yang’s back. Yang’s wings snapped to their full extension; her legs tensed, and then with a powerful downbeat of her wings she sprung straight up into the sky, streaking off towards the east.

* * *

“Best part of flying to the mall?” Yang folded her hands behind her head, flashing a grin at Ruby. “No finding a place to park.”

“I mean, it’s really late. They’re only open another few hours. There would have been plenty of spaces.”

“Shush. Keep your logical thinking out of this. You just travelled on dragonback, you could be a little more excited!”

“It’s not exactly the first time you’ve flown me somewhere…”

“For someone who _wanted_ to come along, you’re really dragging your feet on this.”

“C’mon, don’t be like that.” Ruby folded her arms, looking around. “What’s our budget look like?”

“Eh.” Yang frowned defensively when Ruby stared at her. “What? Buy quality in the first place, save money on replacements down the road. It’s the long game of fiscal responsibility.”

“You know I’m still growing, right? Clothes aren’t really an investment for me.”

“Aw, that’s Ruby Xiao Long the half-human talking! We’re buying for Rubellite, pint-sized bundle of pure-Gem ass-kicking.”

“‘Rubellite’?” Ruby echoed.

“Well, yeah. I’ve never heard of one kind of Gem naming themselves after another kind, and you can’t be Rose Quartz because everyone knows Summer and now her daughter is the only one on Remnant.” Yang shrugged. “Plus this way I can call you ‘Rubes’ and no one’ll think twice about it.”

“Rubellite,” Ruby said again, testing it this time.

“It’s a Tourmaline subtype. They’re bruisers, and they come in a lot of different shapes, including small and skinny.” She winked at Ruby. “Round-cut Tourmalines are unusual, but I doubt anyone’ll think too hard about it. I mean, why would anyone lie about what kind of Gem they were?”

“Isn’t the fact that I’m, y’know, a pinky-white flesh colour going to give it away?”

“We’ll make it work. Here, let’s try this place.”

* * *

Yang raised an eyebrow at the dress Ruby was trying on. “What’s with all the ruffles?”

“They make the skirt poofy!” Ruby smoothed the black shell over its red organza crinoline. “They’re all under the fabric. It’s not like there are bows and frilly stuff all over it.”

“I mean, it just seems kind of kid-y.”

Wordlessly, Ruby pointed at the dress’s neckline which, as specified, showed off her Gemstone. And a little more besides, or it would have, if there was much to show. Yang winced.

“Okay, so not _exactly_ for kids, and now I have questions about why something like this is even in your size. Besides, what if you need to fight?”

“I can totally fight in a dress. This is a butt-kicking dress.”

“With a cute little ballet skirt.”

 _“Combat_ skirt!” Ruby shot back, crossing her arms and sticking out her tongue.

“Not a thing. And now I can’t un-see how ‘Baby’s First Lingerie’ that top is.” Yang shuddered. “Eurgh. It’s like a bad touch on my brain…”

“You show more skin than this all the time,” Ruby pointed out.

“And I fully support you dressing however you want to. Just maybe if that’s the direction you want to go you can do it three to five years from now, when you won’t be giving an exclusive eyeful to a special kind of creep that I’ll have to pummel into oblivion.”

Ruby thought for a moment. She _really_ liked the skirt, so… “I could get some kind of jacket to put over it.”

Yang snapped her fingers. “Motorcycle jacket! Vertical zip, high collar. You can open it enough to show your Gemstone and then zip it back up. Congratulations; Rubellite just became a goth. How do you feel about combat boots?”

* * *

“I feel _amazing_ about combat boots!” Ruby enthused, sticking a foot out and admiring it. “Do they make taller ones?”

“Not for your teeny little greenstick calves.” Yang tapped her lips. “Maybe we should get you some stockings.”

“Red or black?”

“Mm. Black.”

“…Black with red glitter?” Ruby held up a pack, tilting it back and forth under the lights.

“Perfect!”

* * *

“So a good makeup job should help hide all that flesh-and-blood pore biz you’ve got going on.” Yang smoothed foundation onto Ruby’s face; the women’s bathroom probably wasn’t the best place for it, but there was no one left at the makeup counter. “Hey, take the jacket off real quick. The tutorial says it has to go down your neck and chest a little too.”

“It feels kinda…heavy,” Ruby said, grimacing.

“I guess because you’re not used to it? I’m only putting a thin layer on. Rub some of it in; I don’t want to poke your eye out or anything.”

“So…what is the pencil for?”

“Uh. Well, I’m sure you thought that was a _total_ non-sequitur, but…”

_“Do not put that pencil near my eyes, Yang!”_

* * *

“And the _pièce de resistance,”_ Yang announced grandly, putting the last touches on Ruby’s pinky-red nails. “Ooh, they’re so smooth and pretty! I wonder if I can paint my nails. Y’know, I’ve never actually tried? It’s not like makeup, it should stick on its own. I think something in purple could be cool—really make my eyes pop, what do you think?”

“I _think_ you should give it a while before you put the words _eyes_ and _pop_ in the same sentence again,” Ruby groused.

“Aw, c’mon, I didn’t press that hard.”

“Who invented eyeliner and where can I submit my opinion!?”

“Such a drama queen,” Yang sighed, rolling her eyes as she screwed the cap back onto the nail polish. “There. Now you don’t have organic-coloured nails anymore! Try not to chip them too bad.”

“How long have we been here?” Ruby asked, a little plaintive. Yang checked her scroll.

“Only like an hour.”

“Uuuuungh!” Ruby tipped her head back, so it hung over the back of the bench.

“Well, at least look at yourself before you complain.” Yang grabbed her gently by the elbow and steered her back towards the women’s restroom, standing her in front of the mirror once they were inside.

Ruby looked in, and Rubellite stared back, her reddish lips parted in awe. Yang had spread different shades of blusher over her face, neck, and ears; the end result was a Gem’s smooth, flawless complexion just a little pinker than a human’s would be. Heavier cosmetics coloured her hands and a little way up her wrists. Whatever Yang had done to her eyes made them stand out more, and the lines of her face looked sharper, cleaner. Older.

Ruby had begun to feel uncertain about her disguise, her enthusiasm waning during the far-too-lengthy process of applying makeup. But what she saw in the mirror was not a human child playing dress-up and caked in cosmetics. It— _she—_ was a Gem who happened to look a little bit like a young teenage girl. Even next to Yang, the genuine article, she was convincing.

“I’m an artist,” Yang declared. “Hey, do you think any of your friends will let me give them makeovers? This was fun.”

Ruby grinned at her reflection, giving a little twirl. “I think this is going to work.”

“Ready to put it to the test?”

“Let’s do it!”

* * *

The bouncer let Yang pass without a word, but held up a hand as Ruby went to follow her.

“Nice try. No.”

“Dude, she’s not underage,” Yang said. “Trust me. Go on, _Rubellite,_ show him.”

Still looking sceptical, the bouncer held out a hand, clearly expecting an ID card. Instead Ruby partially unzipped her jacket, tapping her fingernails against her Gemstone with a dull _tink_ sound as her heart pounded. “See?” she said, gripping the edges and tugging gently. It didn’t budge.

“Gems can’t be kids, man,” Yang pointed out. “Don’t know what to tell you.”

The bouncer looked from Ruby’s face to her Gemstone and back. He nodded slowly and stepped aside, waving her through. She thought she might faint from relief, wobbling slightly as she passed him. A grin crept over her face as the anxiety faded, elation sliding in to replace it, and Yang elbowed her gleefully.

“What’d I tell you!” she crowed—softly, with a glance back at the bouncer as they stepped up to the door of the club. Ruby could already hear the bass pounding, and as they entered she felt it in the soles of her feet and the bones of her jaw and right in the centre of her chest, like a second heartbeat, driving and alive.

“Is it always this loud?” she asked, wincing a little; strobe lights slanted into her eyes. The club was dimly lit, strip lighting set along the edges of the large central room with some extra bulbs over the bar she could see down below, but those were the only steady light sources. The rest was a riot of flashing colour striping the black-and-white chequered dance floor.

“You bet it is!” Yang spread her arms wide, half-shouting to be heard over the music. “This is it, Rubes! The sacred hall of having fun where we drink, dance, and don’t look too close at what anyone else is doing!” She dropped her arms and fixed Ruby with a serious look. “Only the first thing doesn’t apply to you and the last thing goes double.”

“Got it!” Ruby pointed over the gantry railing, across the dance floor. “Why’s the DJ wearing a costume bear head?”

“Because rave culture is super weird _and I love it._ C’mon, let’s go down to the bar.”

The bartender’s eyes widened slightly as he saw them approach. “Ah, _sh—”_

The music reached a crescendo, obscuring whatever else he had to say, and Yang grinned at him as she slid onto a bar stool. “Junior! How ya been?”

 _“Peachy.”_ Junior smiled tightly, picking up a rocks glass. “The usual?”

Yang winked, clicking her tongue and pointing a finger gun at him. “And the virgin kind for my friend here—you’ll love it,” she assured Ruby.

“Oh good. There’s more of you. Coming right up.” Junior snorted and turned away, grabbing another glass and setting them side by side, reaching for a bottle labelled _Crème des fraises._ Ruby leaned towards Yang.

“He doesn’t seem to like you very much…”

“Nah, that’s just Junior. He’s like that with all the regulars.”

“Sunrise,” Junior said curtly, clunking a glass down in front of Yang. “Dry,” as he set the other before Ruby. He caught sight of something over her shoulder and smiled broadly. “Hey- _hey,_ ’Daro! Long time no see, you old bastard! Don’t tell me—neat whiskey coming up, top shelf! Nah, don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

Ruby eyed Yang sceptically. The Ametrine shifted uncomfortably, rolling her eyes.

“Okay, so I _may_ have thrown a guy over the bar and busted up a bunch of Junior’s stock a few months ago and _apparently_ he isn’t over that yet. Whoops.”

_“Yang!”_

“What?” Yang grabbed the stirrer-straw in her drink and swirled it, blending the rosy liquid in the bottom into the orange juice on top. She put the glass to her lips and tipped some of the peachy drink back. “He had it coming, trust me.”

“Did you at least pay Junior back?”

“Hell no!” At Ruby’s scandalized look, Yang gestured broadly at the interior of the club. “Look around, Rubes. How many guys do you see dressed like the bouncer out front—suit, red sunglasses, hats?”

“Um…there’s a lot of them.”

“Yeah, well, they aren’t private security. Junior—his real name’s Hei Xiong, and he’s so mobbed-up it’s ridiculous. This place does a lot of legitimate business, but it’s a front too, and those guys in the suits are enforcers. Sometimes he hires ’em out to other criminals who need extra guns. He’s raking in the lien and he’s not too picky about where it comes from. Just keep that in mind before you start feeling too sorry for him.”

“Oh.” A little taken aback, Ruby stirred up her own beverage and took a drink. “Mmm! This is really good!”

“Strawberry Sunrise. Drink of the gods.”

“So if this place is so sketchy, why are we here? …And giving the owner money?”

“Think of it as the literal cost of doing metaphorical business. Who comes to a mob bar?”

“Mobsters?”

Yang clinked their glasses together. “Got it in one. This is the best place to get a bead on anything shady going down.”

“Okay. So we sit here and wait.”

“Well, we could dance too, you know.” Yang shifted anxiously, fingers tapping the bar along to the music’s beat. “Mingle.”

“I was just thinking I could use some exercise,” said a new voice. Yang’s eyes lit up, while Ruby felt a shiver go down her spine, looking at the girl who had slipped away from the crowd and quite silently come to stand behind Yang. “What about you?”

For a moment, Ruby thought she was being addressed; she opened her mouth, but before she could say anything she heard the same voice from behind her. “Why not. It’s been awhile.”

“Never mind,” Yang said cheerfully, knocking back the rest of her drink. “Sitting and waiting worked like a charm! This is a new record. I gotta bring you along more often!”

She turned to face the girl behind her, and Ruby scrunched as close to Yang as she could get without leaving her seat. Now that she could see the girls clearly, she realised they weren’t _girls_ at all, but two small, young-faced Gems with identical features. The one on the left, who’d spoken first, wore a white dress. Her Gemstone was set on the outside of her right shoulder, her skin bright green banded with dark. Her expressionless—twin? Could Gems _be_ twins?—was the inverse, bright bands on dark, Gemstone on the left shoulder, dressed in black. They had the same dark, almost black green hair and luminescent green eyes, and their banded green Gemstones were mirror images.

“Malachites?” she hazarded, earning the attention of the lighter Gem.

“Melanie,” she said.

“Miltia,” said her darker twin. They each placed the hand of their Gemstone arm on their hip in eerie synchronisation.

“Just trying to get it right, are you introducing yourselves or saying each other’s names as like, the out-loud version of the ‘let’s do this’ nod?” Yang asked, leaning back against the bar. “It’s just so _awkward_ to call out the wrong name, you know? But I guess you two are probably used to that, I mean, _wow._ Did you literally form in the exact same spot?”

“I’m surprised you’ve never run into the Malachite twins before, considering you make a hobby out of pissing off the worst possible people.”

“Oh, Junior,” Yang sighed, tilting her head to glance at him out of the corner of her eye. “Did you hire Gem mercenaries just for me? You shouldn’t have.”

“I’d really like to say it isn’t personal, but congratulations.” Junior smiled mirthlessly. “You’re officially just that annoying.”

“Have I _really_ made the kind of problems for you that warrant taking out a hit on me?”

“A hit? No. A good beating to put your head straight, eh.” Junior shrugged. “My patrons come here with certain expectations, like privacy, a lack of judgement, and a little bit of breathing room. You coming in here and throwing your weight around all the time, well, that puts kind of a damper on things.” He braced his hands on the bar, leaning forward and giving Yang a plastic little smile while he stared her down. “So the girls here, they’re going to pop you and your little friend and drop your stones down a hole where you can think some nice, deep thoughts about your future. And how it isn’t going to involve my business.”

Ruby froze as she considered that. _Would_ they be able to poof her? What would they do if they realised she was part-human—trust that she’d keep quiet to keep Yang out of trouble, or—oh no, _was she in a mafia thriller?_

Yang didn’t look worried, though. She didn’t look very impressed, either, snorting as she leaned in and crossed her arms, her face inches from Junior’s. “Practice that one in the mirror?”

“He didn’t say you’d have backup,” Melanie said, giving Ruby a once-over. “Maybe this’ll actually be a challenge.”

“Oh boy,” Ruby squeaked; Yang sighed and turned around, propping her elbows against the bar.

“Come on, ladies, I like a good fight as much as the next Quartz, but let’s be reasonable. Who really loses if we trash this place? I’m pretty sure your boss’s insurance won’t cover anything we do in self-defense against the thugs _he_ hired to rough _us_ up.”

Melanie held up a finger. “Client, not boss.” Another. “Mercs, not thugs.” And a third. “Who says you’re going to last long enough to make a mess?”

“Wait, no, we agreed you’d take this outside—!”

Junior ducked beneath the bar as Miltia sprang forward like a tiger, sharp, claw-like blades materialising at her wrists. Ruby yelped and dove off her stool, just barely remembering to tuck and roll as she’d been taught when she hit the ground.

_I did it!_

She didn’t have time to revel in her success, though, getting to her feet and summoning her weapon just in time to catch Miltia’s next blow on the rifle’s barrel, her claw gauntlets finding purchase briefly and then slipping off. Ruby kicked out, but Miltia twirled away before her foot could make contact. The hybrid took advantage of the brief respite to will her weapon to shift into the scythe that had seen her safely through her first real battle.

“I’m out,” said one of the bar patrons nearest her, slapping a pre-paid lien card down and making a hasty exist. The rest were quick to follow suit.

Yang hadn’t so much jumped from her seat as pulled it out from under herself, ducking her head and swinging the stool at Melanie seat-first as the smaller Gem lashed out with a stiletto-heeled kick, the sharpened edges of her heel ripping the faux-leather and catching on the plasticky stuffing inside. Yang threw her weight behind the stool, tipping Melanie off-balance as she released it and leapt forward, gauntlets already forming around her wrists and hands. The crowd of clubgoers finally realised something was wrong as Melanie stumbled back into a pack of them; a wave of urgency swept from that group through the rest, and they receded from the area around the bar like a tide rolling out.

Melanie extricated her foot and dropped low to the ground, one leg bent and the other extended. Before Yang could drop on her, Miltia ploughed into her from the side, knocking her to the floor. Yang rolled as she hit, springing to her feet and dancing away from the Malachites as she dropped into a boxing stance, knees bent, feet apart, and fists raised.

Ruby, ignored now, swung her scythe towards Miltia’s middle in a blur of enhanced speed, knowing that as long as she avoided the Gemstone the Malachite would be effectively unharmed. Melanie didn’t let it get that far, though. She braced her hands on the floor and pivoted so that her extended leg swept Ruby’s in a graceful high arc, mercifully striking toe-first. Ruby gasped and dissolved into petals just as she was struck, saving herself from a nasty tumble; the tip of her scythe just grazed Miltia above her hip, tearing her dress, before it vanished along with its wielder.

Ruby streaked towards Yang, re-forming herself next to the Ametrine, who gave her an approving nod and a wide grin. “Let’s show them how we do things in our house!”

“Like a kinda messed-up sitcom with no laugh track?”

“Wh— _no!_ Rubes, I meant we should beat the crap out of ’em!” Yang aimed a gauntlet low behind her and fired as she sprang forward, swinging her other fist in a mean right hook. This forced her body to twist just slightly in midair, so that when Miltia tried to shift and retaliate she missed Yang entirely, while the Ametrine’s fist clipped her chin just as the gauntlet fired, sending the Malachite flying.

“You make our home life sound very violent and upsetting!” Ruby called. “Oop!”

Melanie had picked herself off the floor as Ruby retreated and Yang readied her next move, and now she surged forward. Ruby hauled back on her scythe, preparing to swing, but just as Melanie came into range she tucked into the start of a forward roll, taking her weight onto her hands and slashing both of her bladed feet towards Ruby like scythes of her own.

Or a blender, Ruby thought, taking that idea and running with it; once again she burst into petals, but this time she let herself get swept up by Melanie’s attack, whirling around, propelled through the air by the force of the Malachite’s powerful kicks. Melanie couldn’t move quite fast enough to knock Ruby back into a more solid form, but as her feet reached the ends of their arcs Ruby re-formed on her own, her weapon vanished back into her Gemstone. She hooked an arm around each of Melanie’s legs as she fell, her weight and momentum enough to pull the Malachite over with her, her back smacking hard against the dance floor. Ruby caught a glimpse of her features, twisted in rage, the strobe lights sending eerie flickers of vivid colour over her face.

The music still pounded on, even with the club’s clientele streaming towards the doors; they didn’t sound terribly alarmed, so either they were used to this or most of them hadn’t quite worked out what was going on. If Yang was a regular here, Ruby figured, it could really go either way. They weren’t the only ones who needed to make an escape, though; Ruby could feel Melanie’s legs tensing, so she phased again, shooting straight up in a swirl of petals and re-forming with her rifle in hand, aiming it squarely at Melanie’s chest and pulling the trigger.

Melanie didn’t have time to get her feet under her. Her eyes went wide. She loosed the start of a furious scream, and her body imploded in a burst of light, her Gemstone clattering to the floor.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Junior muttered, poking his head out and surveying the scene with dismay. “Hey!” He gestured towards one of the guards; they had come to hover uncertainly near the bar. Guarding him, Junior would like to think, but he had a sinking feeling that it was probably a fifty-fifty split between that and not wanting to run afoul of Yang and her phase-shifting friend.

“Get out there and help Miltia! Figure out how much they’re actually getting _paid_ after this stunt,” he growled, settling back into cover and crossing his arms. “I say take it outside, you damn sight _take it outside…”_

Ruby dashed up to the DJ’s turntable. Like his boss, he’d taken shelter behind his workstation; the playlist rolled on without his input. She leaned over and bopped the top of his costume bear head to get his attention. He started and tilted his head back, blank eyes surveying her.

“Hold out your hands,” she said, and the DJ did so automatically. She dropped Melanie’s Gemstone into his cupped palms. “This is Melanie Malachite. She’ll regenerate sometime between an hour and a week from now, depending on how picky she is! She’s not very nice, but she works for your boss so you should be careful with her anyway.”

She caught movement out of the corner of her eye; turning her head, she noticed some of Junior’s mob guys converging on the centre of the dance floor, where Yang and Miltia were trading blows.

“Also it’s the right thing to do! Tell her I’m sorry I had to poof her gotta-go-bye!”

Ruby summoned her scythe without really thinking as she ran towards the brawl. Junior’s men were in the way; two were flanking Yang as Miltia waled on her defences from the front, while a third was coming up on her from behind; Yang jabbed her elbow back into his solar plexus, and he went down, wheezing. Ruby saw another in the shadows of the gantry above, gun out and pointed right at Yang; thinking quickly, she phased and darted towards him, re-forming in midair and swinging her scythe.

The unearthly weapon tore straight through one of the lighting rigs, terrestrial metals yielding and crumpling before a blade designed to bite into alloys for which Remnant had no equivalent. Sparks flew from severed cables as the whole array dropped towards the gunman. He saw it coming and shouted, diving out of the way moments before it crashed down on the point where he’d been standing, rattling the whole gantry. Light flared bright and hot before what little stable lighting there was in the club went dark with the heavy _shunk_ sound of a breaker popping, only the strobes over the dance floor still going.

Ruby winced as she caught the gantry railing to stop her own fall, grimacing with the effort as she pulled herself up and over it one-handed, still holding tightly onto her scythe. Yang, for her part, saw her opportunity and took it: the two remaining enforcers had faltered just slightly at the thunderous sound of the rig coming down and shaking the building, and now with the lights all but gone they were blind, all the more so for their sunglasses. Yang got them both with rabbit punches, one to the jaw and one to the forehead. Both went down.

Unfortunately, she’d had to break off from Miltia to manage it, and the Malachite pressed forward with renewed ferocity, the cold, forbidding expression on her face conveying her fury more clearly than a scowl ever could have. Her arms were nearly a blur as she jabbed at Yang with fists and claws and elbows, whirling like a windmill. Yang blocked or dodged every blow without much of a struggle, but she couldn’t find an opening to strike back. Primary colours danced over them, yellow-and-brown and green-and-black rendered nearly identical in the chaos.

“Got her!” Ruby hollered, re-forming a bare yard away from Miltia.

Miltia wheeled and lunged inside the reach of Ruby’s scythe; Ruby stumbled back, but Miltia grabbed the haft of the scythe and pulled, drawing one of her fists back for a punch that would send her claw right through Ruby’s face. Her pupils were blown wide.

Oh yeah. She’d _definitely_ seen what Ruby had done to Melanie.

_“You do not touch her!”_

Yang’s hair went up like a bonfire, her eyes blazing just as bright; she barrelled into Miltia, ripping the scythe from both her grip and Ruby’s in the process. One, two, three rapid-fire punches to Miltia’s stomach and the Malachite went sailing through the air, slamming into the wall and dissipating in a burst of light.

Ruby dropped to the floor, panting. Yang stood stock-still for a moment, the flames receding from her hair; then she turned to Ruby and offered her hand, helping the hybrid up.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” Ruby looked around; nothing and no one, just a wrecked club. “We did it!”

Yang laughed, lightly punching her shoulder. “Of course we did! Holy crap, Ruby, you were awesome!”

The music cut off, and they looked over to see the DJ standing frozen, bear mask staring straight at them, hand still on the turntable’s power switch.

“Oh! Wait-wait-wait!” Ruby called as they started to back away; she ran to get Miltia’s Gemstone, jogging back to the turntable and holding it out to the DJ. “This is Melanie’s, uh…this is Miltia. Same deal. Please take care of them both!”

Yang, meanwhile, had headed back to the bar, peering over it. “Junior’s gone!” she called. “Must’ve run out after the lights went.” She straightened up. “We need to get going too. No way the cops aren’t on their way by now.”

She grinned at the DJ, throwing him a sloppy salute. “DJ Bear Head! Excellent work as always. Keep it up!”

The DJ gave her a tentative thumbs-up with the hand that wasn’t holding Miltia’s Gemstone.

“Alright, but seriously, we gotta scoot. C’mon, Rubes.”

“Bye!” Ruby said, waving as she ran after Yang. “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Bear Head!”

“I feel like if that’s _not_ his stage name it should be. Gotta live your brand, you know?”

“I still don’t get it…”

“Right, but you aren’t questioning it anymore either.” Yang slapped a hand onto Ruby’s back, between her shoulder-blades, as they walked out the doors of the club and took a right, walking swiftly away from the sound of sirens closing in. “I think an all-out bar-breaking brawl is enough action for one night, though. So now comes the hard part: sneaking back into the house without anyone noticing.”

“Oh,” Ruby said. “Is it still before midnight?”

Yang pulled out her scroll and checked. “Huh. Yup.”

“Then I don’t need to sneak. I’ll tell Ozpin I’m running a little bit later than I thought and I’m on my way back.”

“Oh, left a big window for yourself, huh? Look at you, already covering your bases like a pro. Don’t forget to change into the clothes you left the house in. That’s how I always used to get caught when I was younger. Try explaining that you just happened to decide to hang around the house in a Rococo ballgown…”

Ruby practically glowed, basking in Yang’s pride. “So do you do this a lot?”

“Eh.” Yang shrugged. “Just when I’m feeling restless, usually. Probably a bit more often while Ozpin’s doing his whole ‘sky is falling’ thing, like I said.” She looked down at Ruby and smiled. “You thinking you wanna come along? You did good, but I thought you might’ve got your fill.”

“My heart’s still going fast,” Ruby admitted. “I’m not sure if I’m scared or excited. I think maybe both? But I helped, right?”

“Uh, _yeah_ , you helped! You basically soloed a full-fledged Gem! And that thing with the lights? Inspired!” Yang held out a fist. “Gimme some love, substrate-sister!”

Ruby laughed as they fist-bumped. “Substrate-sister?”

“Iunno. Sounded better than matrix-sister. We came from the same rock, is what I’m saying.” Yang grinned, folding her arms behind her head. “Remnant Quartzes, kicking ass and taking names.”

“Yeah,” Ruby decided, looking up at the sky. “We need to do this again.”

* * *

“Why do actions have consequences?” Ruby lamented, her forehead resting firmly on the counter.

Entering the kitchen, Ozpin opened his mouth, but Qrow lifted a hand to stop him.

“Don’t—don’t actually answer that. That’s not the voice of someone who wants to hear existential philosophy right now.”

“Well—”

“Or physics. Basically no one wants either of those things explained to them in the morning. But it _is_ morning, and you’re actually downstairs.” Qrow raised his eyebrows pointedly. “Nice.”

Ozpin laughed, ducking his head and smiling ruefully. “Yes, well. Contrary to popular opinion, I can in fact take a hint. I see your late night has caught up with you, young Rose.”

Ruby merely groaned in reply.

Qrow leaned over and nudged her cereal bowl towards her pointedly. “Hey, short stuff. Eat your fibre and cow juice before it gets all mushy. You hate that.”

“Let’s just add ‘cow juice’ to the list of phrases you shouldn’t ever say,” Ozpin said pleasantly, leaning against the counter. “Starting now.”

“And after I heated yours up with bean paste and dried-up grass sap!” Qrow set a mug of cocoa down in front of Ozpin, who slipped his fingers under the handle immediately and gave Qrow a knowing look.

“You weren’t planning on using this to lure me out of my workroom, by any chance, were you?”

“What’s with everyone asking questions they don’t want answered this morning? …My fall-back plan involved Zwei and a smoke bomb. It’s a good thing you came down.”

Ruby lifted her head and pulled her bowl a little closer still, picking up the spoon and starting to eat.

“I think she might need the other kind of bean drink,” Ozpin noted, seeing the dark circles under Ruby’s eyes.

“Tai says we aren’t supposed to let her have too much of that until she’s older.”

“How much is too much?”

“Y’know, he wasn’t specific. Ruby, you want coffee?”

_“Yes.”_

“She speaks,” Ozpin observed. Ruby swivelled her head slowly to glare at him. He sipped his cocoa, unperturbed.

“She tries to stab you with that spoon, I’m not helping you. So if you’re down here, does that mean you figured out what’s up with your whatchamacallit?”

“Not in the slightest, but I _have_ run out of ways to prod at it. I’ll give it to the end of the week in case anyone else has better luck with the samples I’ve sent out, and then we’ll do things your way.”

“We could just skip right to the last step. You’d get your answers faster.”

“I’ve explained my reasoning and you agreed with it. We wait.” Ruby instinctively cringed a little at the imperious note that slipped into Ozpin’s voice. Qrow simply nodded as he pulled down a mug for Ruby, no less at ease now than he’d been all morning.

“Hey, look, three of my four favourite people actually in the same place for once. How crazy is that? Yeah, I didn’t know that happened anymore. Right? Morning, everyone.”

Yang had in fact been talking to Zwei, whom she was carrying bodily against her chest. She bent down and set him on the floor, and he trotted immediately over to Ruby’s chair, plopping himself down by her dangling feet.

 _“Passive_ aggression.” Qrow nodded in an assessing fashion, pouring off Ruby’s coffee. “Bold new look for you, firecracker. I thought you just had regular aggression on a slider switch.”

“Shut up and coffee me, coffee-man,” Yang ordered, slumping into a chair on the other side of Ruby from where Ozpin had propped himself. Ruby snatched her own drink out of Qrow’s hands with a mumbled ‘thank you’ and was already pouring some of the hot, super-sweet beverage down her throat.

“What am I, your—? …Uh…”

“Barista,” Ozpin supplied.

Yang smirked. “Real snappy comeback there.”

“Sorry, I’m just so distracted by all the stuff I could get done in the time _you two_ ,” he pointed between Yang and Ozpin, “spend _consuming_ things served to you by people with weird-ass job titles like _barista.”_

“You drink,” Ozpin pointed out mildly.

“Only alcohol and only as a social ritual.”

“You remember social rituals, right, Oz?” Yang chimed in, leaning forward on the counter to peer around Ruby.

Ozpin gestured around with his mug, indicating all of them. “Society.” He raised it towards her in a toast, smiling. “Ritual.”

Yang exchanged a dubious look with Ruby, rolling her eyes; she was still smiling, though.

“You can fix it up yourself,” Qrow said, plunking a mug of black coffee in front of Yang. “I can’t keep track of all the weird latte trends you latch onto.”

“Oh, just wait until pumpkin spice season,” Yang said pityingly.

“Abominations,” Ozpin muttered into his mug. Yang flipped him off behind Ruby’s back. “And on _that_ note…Yang, I’m sorry to ask you this, but would you mind terribly patrolling again tomorrow night? Qrow’s already agreed to handle tonight.”

“Uh, when did I do that, exactly?”

“When you ran out the door yesterday apologising for not being able to take last night and then added, and I quote, _‘but hey, next time’_.” Ozpin smiled at him. “It is now ‘next time’.”

“Figure of speech?” Qrow tried. Ozpin continued looking at him and smiling in silence. “Yeah, okay.”

“Sure, I don’t mind,” Yang said, exchanging a look with Ruby, who gave her a covert thumbs-up.

“Thank you.” It was hard to tell, but Ruby thought Ozpin relaxed ever so slightly as Yang and Qrow voiced their agreement. “I doubt there’s anything to worry about—but just in case.”

* * *

“Yang he’s coming toward you!” Ruby hollered. She spotted a fire escape and ran for it, giving herself just a little boost with her petals as she jumped and caught the ladder, hauling herself up. Her body ached all over, but this was getting easier; she was still stronger and faster than a full-human her age would be, and she had her powers and her weapon. Speaking of which.

She summoned her rifle, setting the butt against her shoulder and aiming carefully. Their target was running towards the far end of the alley but looking around wildly, having heard Ruby well enough to be certain Yang was waiting for him at the other end. He tried to slip down a little side passage to his right, but Ruby loosed a shot into the brickwork above his head, confident she was aiming too high to risk hitting him; he wheeled around on the spot and ran further down the alley, spotting another turn-off to the left and diving down.

Ruby grinned and lowered the rifle. He was heading right towards Yang’s real location. She’d better get down there.

* * *

Waking up felt like clawing her way free of quicksand, but the ringing of her scroll demanded her attention. Ruby flailed her hand around on her bedside table, finding the device blindly and opening it, putting it to her ear.

“’lo?” she slurred.

 _“Ruby! Where have you been!? I haven’t wanted to push it but it’s been over a week since I saw you last and I don’t think it’s clingy of me to expect more than_ monosyllables _when I reach out!”_

“…Weiss?”

 _“Yes! I’ve_ been _calling you! I’m starting to…”_

She tried to pay attention. She really did. Weiss was a good friend, Weiss deserved someone to listen when she talked. But Ruby was just…so tired. Too tired to care about the incredulous look Qrow had given her when she’d announced she was taking an afternoon nap, and she was barely a half hour _into_ that nap and…

…and Weiss had been talking this whole time and Ruby was not up for this.

“Weiss?” Ruby interrupted her. “I’m s—”

She yawned.

“I’m sorry, but I’mma have to call you back…I’m not really…yeah. Mmbye.”

She hung up on a startlingly loud burst of sound. Shouting, she processed a moment later, as she was starting to drift off. Ooh, Weiss was not happy. She’d have to fix that.

Later. When she was…

done…

sleeping…

* * *

“Okay, so this guy is pretty jumpy,” Yang warned, stopping by one of the storefronts. “He knows me, but I don’t want to spook him by bringing you in. So I’m going to go around to the basement door and see if he’ll let me in to talk. You okay waiting for me out here?”

“No problem.” Ruby looked up and down the street. “Looks pretty quiet.”

“Usually is. This part of town isn’t really dangerous—part of why I don’t come here much. Worst thing you’ve got to worry about is boredom. Alright, I’ll be back in a few. Half an hour, tops.”

“I’ll be here!” Ruby promised. Yang waved vaguely as she walked between the shops, disappearing down a set of concrete stairs. There was the sound of a knock, an opening door. Hushed voices. Then the door closed, and Yang did not reappear, so Ruby settled in to wait.

A few minutes had already gone by when something caught her eye. Something she definitely wasn’t expecting to see in what Yang had identified as a safe part of town—black suits, hats, and coloured sunglasses on a quintet of muscle-bound men striding down the street.

_Junior’s enforcers!_

Ruby ducked down the alley, hugging the wall; she watched around the corner as the mob guys approached one of the still-lit storefronts.

“From Dust ’Til Dawn,” she read aloud, softly. _A Dust shop? Why are Junior’s people interested in Dust? They must already have enough for all their mob stuff; don’t these people usually have those kinds of connections already worked out?_

Then one of the figures broke ranks. He was dressed differently from the others, in a white coat and black bowler. Ruby could see a shock of ginger-red hair partially covering his face. No, she realised with a start, as he stepped under the lights at the shop’s entrance, he wasn’t a redhead. He actually had bright orange hair, and pale orange skin to match. He was a _Gem._

Yang had mentioned something about Junior hiring out his guards—which meant they weren’t guards right now. They were _henchmen,_ and the mystery Gem they were escorting must have been the Baddie-in-Chief!

Ruby wavered as she watched the Gem and his henchmen enter. Should she get Yang? It might spook her contact if she did, but this felt like the sort of thing that Yang would want to know about. But at the same time, it was only one Gem and five organics—humans, from the looks of them, so they wouldn’t be able to surprise her with any Faunus abilities either. She’d handled Melanie on her own; why should this Gem be any different? He didn’t look like he was dressed for fighting, even if he could summon a weapon besides the cane he carried.

…Which really wasn’t all that reassuring.

“Mmmmn…” Ruby hopped between one foot and the other, mentally debating. But by then the Gem was already at the shop counter, she could see him through the window, and his cane was resting _just so_ atop the glass as he addressed the shopkeeper, who cringed subtly away. The henchmen were already making their way through the store and gathering up the stock, except for one that was guarding the door. She was out of time.

* * *

The sound of the shop’s bell was nearly lost under the yelp of the door guard, and the scene inside the shop essentially froze. Junior’s contractors turned to look at the door, even the old shopkeeper leaning around to try and see what was going on. Only Torchwick remained as he was—almost. He afforded himself the luxury of letting his eye fall shut and letting out a quiet sigh.

“Why do these things never go smooth?” he asked the store at large, finally turning around; he twirled his cane under his arm and popped the sight on it, just to make it very clear to the shopkeeper that he was in fact staring down a barrel and shouldn’t try anything. He found himself looking at a diminutive red Gem—feminine, if the dress was anything to go by, and holding a scythe, the blade angled behind her.

“Maybe it’s time for a career change,” she suggested.

“And while we’re at it, why is it that every Gem who gets it through their head to play vigilante thinks they have to quip like an action hero? Good banter isn’t something you can force, Red. It’s a gift. You have it or you don’t.” He shook his head, gesturing incredulously. “And then you just stand there and let the bad guy talk at you, like, what is…?”

The Gem narrowed her eyes and clenched her fingers tighter on her scythe. “If you leave quietly now, nothing has to happen. You don’t want any trouble, and I don’t want anyone to get hurt, so please just go.”

“Or you’ll make us go, right. Ugh.” Torchwick shook his head. “Okay, guess we’re doing this.” He waved the enforcers forward with an impatient flick of his fingers. “Get her.”

He sighed quietly as the guards went in—out, rather, as Red backed up hastily, swinging her scythe around to guard with the back edge. “I blame the comic books,” he confided in the shopkeeper, leaning back against the counter and glancing over his shoulder. “Used to be you could count on Gems to show a little common sense, go with the flow, throw any messy little heroic impulses towards fighting monsters and keep out of civic affairs. I mean, look at that.”

Torchwick gestured broadly as Red jabbed the butt of her scythe-haft into an enforcer’s gut, then had to stumble back to avoid a brass-knuckled swing from one of his fellows.

“She has no idea how to fight organics with that thing, and you know what that means? She’s new to it, and she’s a soft touch; doesn’t wanna kill them. A Huntress cracking under the pressure of her profession becoming obsolete sometime in the next few centuries, I’d stake a fortune on it. Oh, hey, one down. Only four to go, Little Red, keep it up!” he called; the Gem gave him a wild-eyed, startled look through the shop window as she continued fighting the guards off.

“Agh, she’s young, too.” Torchwick shook his head. “Homeworld trains its soldiers better than that. Even if she wasn’t a fighter pre-defection, the Rebellion would have made her one and a damn good one, too. I mean, she _could_ have been neutral, but I can’t see a hero complex like that hanging out on the sidelines.”

He frowned, watching two more enforcers fall in quick succession. “Must be one of the leftovers that popped out of the ol’ Kindergarten that first millennium or so, never applied for formal training. If this is where she peaked, you’d think someone would’ve shattered her by now. Oh, _damn_ it,” as a fourth went down, “what is the _point_ of hired help if they’re just going to fold like cardboard the second some rhinestone with an oversized farming tool gets a bug up her ass about truth, justice, and the Remnan way?”

The shop window shattered, the fifth of Torchwick’s hired men flying through and skidding to a stop at his feet, groaning.

“I’d just like to point out, for the record, that _she’s_ the one who caused actual property damage,” he told the shopkeeper, who continued to direct a silent, stony glare at him, only the set of his mouth and the faint tremor in his hands betraying his fear. “Welp, you know what they say about getting things done right…”

Torchwick stepped over the crumpled, moaning enforcer and strode unhurriedly to the door, pointedly opening it and stepping through despite the empty window frame beside it. The cheery jingle of the bell echoed as he came to a stop in front of Red, who was nearly doubled over her scythe, panting hard.

“Did I misread this situation?” Torchwick raised an eyebrow, looking her over sceptically, leaning on his cane. “Are you a Gem who thinks she needs to breathe, or a human on a really creepy cosplay kick?”

The pinkish red of her cheeks grew darker, and she scowled, yanking the zipper down on her jacket just far enough to show the gleam of a Gemstone set high on her chest. Torchwick had seen his share of false Gemstones for one reason or another over the millennia; he knew the real deal on sight.

“I _am_ a Gem,” Red said, lifting her chin defiantly. “And so are you, so why do this? Why steal from organics? What could they have that you don’t? That you think you need to _take_ from them?”

“Uh.” Torchwick gestured behind him, up at the shop’s sign. “Large quantities of Dust?”

Red made a frustrated noise, and Torchwick shrugged. “Ask a stupid question…”

“We’re supposed to protect them!”

Aha. Huntress. Nailed it. “Red, Red, Red. Someone’s been supping on Rebel propaganda.” He _tsked._ “Not all of us signed up in the name of the great Rose Quartz’s environmentalist agenda _or_ her wannabe utopia. Some of us didn’t sign up at all. We just did what we had to do to survive.”

She looked at him like she was seeing some strange, mythical creature. “You…weren’t a part of the Rose Rebellion?”

Torchwick snorted. He pulled his hair away from his face, and Red stared at the square orange Gemstone in his eye socket with fascination. “I’m a _Zircon._ It’s a cushy gig. I wasn’t exactly suffering under the old regime. Why would I wanna tear it down?”

He released the strands, tilting his wrist in an exaggerated motion to check his watch—call him old-fashioned, but it was classier than checking his scroll and a sight easier than digging the thing out in the middle of a job. “And speaking of the law and those who practice it…or in this case enforce it…I think that’s just about all the time we have. _Now.”_ Torchwick spun his cane up, popping the sight and letting Red get a good, long look as he began to circle around her.

“Congratulations, I am officially foiled. You have thwarted my wicked intentions! I have stolen nothing, Mr. Strong and Silent over there is still in one piece, and my associates will shortly be on their way to jail. You won! So why don’t we both call it quits and get out before the police show up, eh?”

Red gripped her scythe firmly, turning to keep him in her sights as he backed away. “Zircon—”

“Torchwick,” he corrected her. “What? I said I wasn’t involved with the Rebellion. That doesn’t automatically make me a hardline traditionalist. Turns out I needed a little anarchy to flourish. Who knew?”

“…You know you just told me your name, right?” She was half-shouting to be heard by now, as he made his slow way down the street, the barrel of his cane trained on her all the while.

“Oh, you’re right, I could totally have said nothing and thrown the suspicion onto that _other_ one-eyed Orange Zircon who dresses just like me and steals shit for a living—come _on,_ Red! I tip one card, I’ve tipped my whole hand; I knew what I was doing.”

She was staying put. Carbon and ash, she was actually _staying put._ There was hope for the youth of today, after all.

“I meant what I said, Little Red! If you’re smart, you’ll get outta dodge, too! Cops don’t like people thinking they’re above the law on either side of the line!” He was already out of range, but as long as _she_ didn’t know that, it was fine. A few more steps, and he’d be at the mouth of an alleyway that he knew led into a little maze of backstreets, the bones of the older city around which modern Vale had grown. Torchwick had walked those streets when they were new, and he knew them still. Red hadn’t crossed his radar before now, so he doubted she could say the same.

And there it was. Torchwick lowered his cane and turned to run—

* * *

—and Ruby slammed into him at full speed, petals coalescing into her true shape as she made impact, knocking him sprawling to the pavement. Torchwick spat asphalt debris off his tongue and bucked her off, twisting sharply and throwing her a short distance. She rolled, careful to keep her elbows in, thankful she had dismissed her scythe before she’d lunged. Torchwick was already on his feet, holding his cane in front of him in what was unmistakably a well-practiced combat posture—one she didn’t recognise.

Anxiety flared. Somewhere in the back of her head, she’d expected him to fight like Ozpin. Looked like she couldn’t count on that small advantage after all.

 _You beat Melanie,_ she reminded herself. _You beat Melanie._

_With Yang’s help. When you weren’t tired from fighting a bunch of other bad guys. And staying up late nearly every night for a week before and still trying to get through the days too…_

This was going to be rough.

“Fine,” Torchwick said, setting his jaw. “Let’s dance.”

Ruby didn’t waste breath replying, scrambling to gain some distance as she got back to her feet. She focused on the image of Qrow’s weapon as she called back her own, scythe materialising in her hands and she swung out, the motion clumsy but she could hardly afford the time to do it right—he’d be inside her reach by then. Torchwick’s cane flipped up to catch the blade, the Gem twirling lightly like a dancer to bring himself inward. Ruby yanked back hard, trying to hook him.

Torchwick loosed a sharp laugh, and to Ruby’s shock, he jumped straight up; he landed directly on the incoming blade, feet planted firmly on the flat, yanking it from Ruby’s grasp by his weight alone. He raised his cane again, the tip flipping open, and Ruby flung herself out of the way as he fired, a Burn Dust round detonating barely a foot away from her.

 _Petals,_ she berated herself belatedly; that ability wasn’t entirely instinctual yet, and she wasn’t thinking straight. _Or the shield-bubble. Head in the game, Ruby!_

Torchwick had already fired again, sending her running; at last she let go of her form, rose petals swirling around him as through her strange half-perception in this state she eyed the handle of her scythe. The blade was still firmly under Torchwick’s feet; he moved nimbly atop it as he swivelled, somehow managing to track her movement even at this speed, the pupil of his one eye dilated and fixed intently on the whirlwind of her form.

She couldn’t do this forever. Where could she go? …Could she flee? Would her weapon basically de-spawn and return to her Gem if she got far enough away?

Suddenly she noticed a sharp smirk on Torchwick’s face, his thumb flicking over the handle of his cane, and then he fired straight at her. She sped up as best she could, unsure if a bullet or even a Dust round would harm her like this, but too late she realised the eruption of Dust around the barrel of his cane hadn’t been the harsh red of Burn Dust, but an ominous black that somehow seemed to glow.

The Gravity Dust burst around her, and Ruby couldn’t say for sure if it was affecting her solid, humanoid form or if her petals had been caught, but she was yanked rudely to earth, her body forcibly compacted into its proper shape. She yelled in pain, a strange tension building and breaking as her cells snapped together without warning, and she barely caught herself with her hands before her head could slam into the ground. She remembered abruptly how frightened she’d been the first time she’d broken apart, how relieved when she’d been able to will herself together again. Her control was gone, now, and it chilled her.

“Nice trick. You rely on it too much.”

Ruby flipped over onto her back, and immediately felt the press of Torchwick’s cane between her eyes. The outline of the barrel would be pressed into her skin if he lifted it away. His expression was almost blank as he stared down at her, and she realised that what he was about to do didn’t affect him in the slightest. He would shoot her and walk away, completely indifferent.

“So long, Little Red. I’ll do you a solid and kick your stone out of the street before I go.”

“No, wait—!” _It doesn’t work that way for me!_ Did it? Would she live? Was the Gemstone all she needed—was her body just another construct, 3D-printed flesh instead of projected light? Or was she even now taking her last breath?

Tears welled in her eyes, from fear at first—and then she imagined her dad learning she was gone forever, Qrow learning he’d lost another Rose Quartz, Yang blaming herself and going cold and silent, Ozpin bubbling her dead, empty Gemstone and adding her to his catalogue of the lost—

“Please don’t,” she whispered, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender. The motion drew Torchwick’s eye, and he froze.

“What the _fuck,”_ he said, very clearly and precisely. Ruby couldn’t move her head, but she tried to follow his gaze, her eyes palpably straining, and she saw what adrenaline and the greater pain of her forced reconstitution had prevented her from feeling: her palms were scraped raw, blood trickling to pool in the centre.

“But you’re—you’ve got—your powers—the—” His mouth worked silently for a moment; his cane continued to press into Ruby’s forehead, but she felt little tremors running down it. “Oh. Oh _hell_ no. You’re—”

Abruptly, he laughed, clapping his hand to his face, hiding it. “Of _course_ you are. Oh, this night just keeps getting _better!_ Little _Lady Rose_ , in the brand-new flesh!”

Torchwick dropped his hand, glaring down at her. “Do you have _any idea_ how complicated this just got?” His cane pressed harder. Ruby gritted her teeth, determined not to let any more sounds escape. “Oh, and right on cue, I hear the cops. Great. _Perfect!_ Let’s add a time limit! What to do with you…”

He startled then, wheeling around, the barrel at last leaving Ruby along with a shuddering sigh from deep within her. With effort, she levered herself up a little, enough to see past Torchwick to what had caught his attention.

 _“Yang!”_ she shouted, the Gem’s head whipping around immediately from the wreckage of the Dust shop. Ruby knew the moment she’d been spotted: Yang’s hair burst into flame, and she charged like a bull.

“Nope,” Torchwick said, and darted down the alley he’d tried to use to escape earlier. Ruby struggled against the Gravity Dust still weighting her down, trying to give chase; she hissed in pain as her raw, bleeding hands met the pavement. She’d managed to fight her way onto one knee by the time Yang reached her, flames licking around her face.

“Ruby…”

She pointed. “That way! Go after him!”

Yang shook her head. “Ruby—”

“He’s getting away!”

 _“Ruby!”_ The name was nearly a shriek in Yang’s voice.

Ruby stopped, staring up at her wide-eyed. The fire had gone. Yang knelt down, taking her hands, holding them palm-up; she smoothed her thumb over the imprint of Torchwick’s weapon between Ruby’s eyes. The Gem’s hands were shaking—no. Her whole body was shaking.

“We’re going home,” Yang whispered, squeezing her eyes shut.

“But—!”

“We’re going home. I am calling Tai and we are _going home.”_

“But Torchwick—”

 _“Almost killed you!”_ Yang’s eyes flew open, and she grabbed Ruby by the shoulders, shaking her sharply. “I’m supposed to keep you safe and I couldn’t and—and I put you in danger and it wasn’t necessary and you could have _died!”_

“I _know,”_ Ruby protested. “But I didn’t!”

“Yeah, that’s the thing about _dying,_ Ruby _—_ it _never_ happens until it does!” Yang swallowed hard. “Come on. Can you stand?”

“I’m covered in detonated Gravity Dust.”

“Okay. Okay…let’s get you cleaned off.”

“The police…”

Yang’s jaw tightened. “I don’t _care.”_

Which was a good thing, as it happened, because they arrived on scene less than a minute later.

* * *

And so Ruby found herself sitting in an interrogation room, the makeup washed from her face and neck, her hands bandaged, her scroll gone. A dark-haired woman who had introduced herself first as Marina and second as Detective Caliph had taken it and her statement maybe half an hour ago; she hadn’t thought to check the clock until a little while after the detective had left. Yang had called Taiyang even as the patrol officers had approached them at the scene, explaining in an eerily calm voice that Ruby was safe and well but that they would be at the police station, raising her voice to ask the officers which precinct they’d been dispatched from.

She’d heard that calm crack right through along with Yang’s voice as she’d added “Don’t be mad at her, okay? …It’s my fault.”

When the door opened, it wasn’t Detective Caliph or her father who entered. It was Ozpin, his expression grave. He closed the door behind him quite gently. Ruby dropped her gaze, listening more than watching as he approached the table, _step-tap-step_ with his cane. A rustling noise caught her attention, and a brown paper envelope with a little see-through window on the front was placed in front of her. It had a cookie in it, one of the nice big ones you got from coffee shops.

“Given the late hour,” Ozpin said quietly, taking a seat, “I thought you might be hungry. It isn’t much, but then neither is my influence these days.”

Hesitantly, Ruby slid the envelope towards herself. Ozpin tipped his head in encouragement so she opened it, handling the cookie gingerly with her fingertips and nibbling at it. Once her stomach had been reminded that food was indeed A Thing, her appetite returned with a vengeance, and she swiftly devoured the treat.

Ozpin waited until she was done to speak again. “It’s a good thing Yang thought to call your father first. She saved him a great deal of worry.”

Ruby hunched her shoulders defensively.

“She insists—loudly—that she is solely responsible for your involvement in tonight’s…incident. Unfortunately, that is not the story told by security footage.” He paused. “You acquitted yourself well, considering your limited training and experience.”

It should have been praise. Well, it _was_ praise. Somehow, though, Ruby got the impression that she wasn’t supposed to preen in response. She simply waited in silence for the other shoe to drop.

“I believe I said much the same to Yang after her first few fights,” Ozpin said at length, lacing his fingers together, resting his forearms against the edge of the table beside his cane. “Four thousand years ago, now. She would have been younger then than you are now. And why should she not have been proud, why should she not have put to use the skills we began to instil in her practically the day we took her in, your mother and Qrow and I? She was not a child. Gems are never children. Yet here you are. Human, Gem, child, all at once.” He exhaled slowly, softly. “Do you know why Yang learned to cook?”

“…For me?” Ruby guessed, speaking for the first time since Ozpin had entered.

“Did you know she was the first of us to do so? She began practicing almost before you were born. As you grew older, she played with you, carried you about, held entire conversations with you even before you could speak, as if you could somehow understand and respond.” His gaze grew distant, almost wistful. “She was the first of us to accept that Summer was well and truly gone, and that you would be someone and something entirely new—I do not count your father in that, of course. He knew from the start.

“Qrow and I were adrift with you, relieved that in those days you still returned to your father’s care each night. In time, Yang coaxed Qrow to join in your play, aided your father in teaching him how you might be cared for. And she told me—” He chuckled. “She told me that if I was so in love with the sound of my own voice, I might as well read to you, and that if nothing else I’d bore you to sleep.”

“I’m…sorry, but…what does this have to do with tonight?”

“It is only now that it strikes me as strange.” Ozpin continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “That the youngest of us should have been the most involved in raising you in those early years and further that, now that you are older, she has drawn back and allowed Qrow and I to take the lead. Because it is only now that I realise she _hasn’t._ Now that you are beginning to grow into adulthood, you’re coming into the abilities of a Gem. You can summon a Gem’s weapon. And so, despite your additional needs, you are in Yang’s eyes as much a Gem as she is—and she is raising you as we raised her, for how would she know to do otherwise? She can teach only what she herself has learned.”

“You guys weren’t her parents.”

He smiled sadly. “And that, I fear, is where we failed her. …I am proud of what you’ve done, Ruby, because what I know of you tells me you did it out of a genuine desire to do the right thing. However, I cannot condone the way you went about it. You chose to confront Torchwick with no backup, and you chose to give chase when he would have left empty-handed and having harmed not a soul.” Ozpin’s face was stern again, his tone detached and critical.

“All this would have been bad enough were you a full-fledged Huntress or even a more advanced trainee. You are not. You have scant _months_ of training, nothing more—and that is not nearly enough to face down an opponent as canny as Torchwick unless you are willing to rely more on luck than skill.” His eyes closed just a little too long for a blink. “But I am no more your parent than I was Yang’s, so it is time I leave and let your father have a word with you.”

“Oh…”

Ozpin took his cane in hand and stood, looking down at her. “Do not misunderstand me. I am not at all happy with Yang’s conduct in this, nor with yours. She neglected a responsibility she chose to accept and she endangered you. You wilfully misled myself, Qrow, and your father for nearly a week in order to abet what was, technically, criminal activity. You were both unconscionably reckless.”

“Are we in real trouble?”

“With the law? No. Considering your age and that you acted in both self-defense and defense of another, you aren’t being punished—the shopkeeper you aided is refusing to press charges as far as the damage to his property is concerned. For her part, Yang wasn’t actually involved in what happened tonight and it is only _tonight,”_ Ozpin stressed, “that the two of you have been positively identified as persons of interest.”

Well, that was a huge relief, but… “How mad is Dad?”

Ozpin smiled, but it was faintly apologetic. “Significantly more so than I am and marginally less so than Qrow. For better or worse, he’s _quietly_ angry this time.”

“Worse,” said Ruby, wincing. “Definitely worse.”

“Do you need a moment to prepare yourself?”

“…No. I messed up. I’ve got this coming. Let’s get it over with.”

Ozpin nodded. Ruby thought he would leave right then, but to her surprise he leaned forward and rested a hand on her shoulder.

“You aren’t the only one still learning, you know. Nor is Yang. But I think perhaps both of you still have some growing up to do.”

Then he was gone, passing off the door to Taiyang and vanishing down the hallway behind him. Tai closed the door and looked at her for a long moment.

Tentatively, Ruby said, “Hi.”

Taiyang inhaled deeply. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said in a careful, controlled voice. “And I’m very disappointed that we have to have this talk again.”

“Smart and careful,” Ruby repeated quietly.

“Because I’m getting real tired of having to settle for knowing you didn’t get yourself killed _this_ time.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I _did_ think about how you’d feel if…if something happened. I just didn’t think of it soon enough.”

Slowly, Taiyang nodded. “I know you’re sorry. You were sorry last time, too. So this time, you’re grounded. Ten days. And you’ll be doing _everything_ Qrow, Ozpin or I tell you to, and you’ll remember that you’re incredibly lucky that it’s me choosing your punishment, not a judge or whatever cosmic force runs the afterlife around here.”

 _Just ten days?_ Ruby wanted to ask, but she kept the words from spilling out. No need to give him ideas. She swallowed. “Okay. I understand.”

“Okay. Let’s go home. We can talk more there.”

“Home?”

“Yours. I’m not going to have you stay with me as a _punishment.”_ Taiyang was no longer meeting her eyes. He passed a hand over his face, sighing. “You know I love you, right?”

Standing, Ruby circled the table and wrapped her arms around his waist in a hug, careful to keep her abraded palms clear. “I’m sorry I’ve been making things harder for you lately.”

“It’s not about me.” He returned the hug, the set of his shoulders finally relaxing. “Come on. This isn’t the place for the rest of this conversation.”

* * *

A little bit of shouting happened when they got home, but Qrow got it out of his system quickly. He always did, especially when Tai gave him a forbidding look that had him backing off early. Most of his anger seemed directed at Yang, but by the next day it had dropped to a simmer at most. It turned out that Yang was _also_ subject to Taiyang’s temporary new rules, grounding and all. To Ruby’s surprise, Yang didn’t object, just nodded and went to her room. Ruby followed her. She looked like she needed a hug, too. With everything out in the open, things were—well, not _normal,_ but peaceful, no outbursts building and threatening to break free, no bombshells braced to fall. Ruby, relieved, began to feel like maybe normal really was around the corner, just waiting for the clock to run down on their punishment.

There was something a little sharp in the smile Qrow gave Ruby as he handed her the receiver to their communications landline, though. Like he knew that karma was about to hit her hard, which it did, in the form of Weiss Schnee’s curt, haughty voice demanding answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I'm being honest, the weirdest part of writing this fic is the whole thing where Ozpin=Garnet means he's like...an integral part of Ruby's immediate family now. Tai's still her dad, Qrow's still basically her uncle and Yang's still basically her big sister, but now also Ozpin is there and that’s…a thing, I guess? Finding the right feel for their relationship has been a bit of a struggle—but fortunately, that struggle can exist as part of the story itself. Still. Oof.
> 
> Today's loosely-adapted episode was Tiger Millionaire. And also Yellow Trailer and also Ruby Rose and arguably also That Time Yang Took Ruby Into The Woods In A Wagon. Next chapter's loosely-adapted episode will be Giant Woman, for real this time, I promise. There will be a minimum and probably a total of one (1) Fusion. The thing you clicked the fic for is happening even if it's not necessarily the people you wanted it to happen with yet! Rejoice!
> 
> Feedback in any form is always welcome. I do my best to respond to most if not all comments. Sometimes I'm even concise about it! Whether you leave anything or not, though, thanks for reading!


	6. Like Nobody’s Watching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As part of the fallout from the Torchwick Incident, Ruby and Yang are tasked with joining Qrow on his latest mission, a routine research trip that for some reason involves a stop-off at Haven. Now if only Yang and Qrow could put their current disagreement aside long enough to keep it routine, that would be great.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently this is just the length chapters are now. ...’kay.
> 
> This was one of the first chapters I had anything written for, though several of the planned scenes have morphed somewhat and it initially involved a lot less…conflict. But anyway…  
> *clangs bell* Fusions! Fusions are here! We have Fusions now! Not really a spoiler because I already said this was Giant Woman! Read on and enjoy!

Ruby’s skin prickled and itched as she rematerialised on the warp pad. She opened her eyes—closing them wasn’t a requirement, but she always did it instinctively—and looked around.

She’d been here a lot over the last few years, but the vast courtyard in which she now stood never grew any less impressive. The complex was as pristine and intact as it had been nearly six thousand years ago, when the central structures were first constructed to serve as the fortress-capitol of the Rose Rebellion. Enough buildings had been added since then that the full campus was nearly the size of a small town, but most of it wasn’t visible from the warp. That was set on the huge, arch-lined central walkway; behind her were the airship landings and the steep drop down into the fjord, and before her in the distance were the high doors of the main hall, the structure dwarfing the great statue in its pool which stood at the heart of the innermost node.

Behind that she could see an array of domes and spires clustered together. It was like they were hanging back out of respect for the massive structure of Beacon Tower, buttressed by four lesser turrets themselves tall enough to see and crowned by the lantern chamber which gave the complex its name. The beacon was dark, the hands of the clock beneath it stopped. This place which had once garrisoned an entire army, which in centuries past had housed and trained generations of organics seeking to defend their world, stood eerily empty, and as always happened Ruby’s awe was soon overshadowed by a strange, heavy sadness that seemed to come from the very stones around her.

This was Beacon Academy as she had always known it: solemn, grand, and terribly lonely.

“Alright, come on,” Qrow said, stepping off the warp. “We’re burning daylight.”

“We’ve got plenty to burn,” Yang pointed out, but she followed his brisk pace without protest.

“Yeah, well, Mistral’s a few time zones east and we’ve got a long walk once we’re there.” He glanced back at her, a grin slowly spreading over his face. “Hang on. You’ve _really_ never been where we’re going before. Oh, this is going to be all kinds of educational for both of you.”

“Yay,” Yang deadpanned. “Education.”

“Yay,” echoed Ruby.

“Hey, you guys don’t wanna get stuck doin’ milk runs with me, maybe don’t run around paying crime unto crime.” Qrow shrugged. “You’ve been getting off easy up to now.”

“You made us weed the _entire vegetable patch.”_

“And Dad’s,” Ruby added glumly.

“Mowing the lawn, weed-whacking around the driveway—not to mention all those freaking survey missions _I_ had to go on—”

“Oh, you mean the ones I _can’t_ go on because you can’t be trusted to actually patrol?” Qrow raised an eyebrow at Yang, who quieted, scuffing her boots a little as she walked.

Chastened, Ruby proceeded in silence as well. Her gaze passed over the trees whose deep red foliage marked them as transplants from Forever Fall, but lingered on the statue as they passed it. Armed stone Gems, humans, and Faunus clustered together protectively around a central figure she recognised only from pictures: Summer Rose Quartz in full battle garb, her cloak swirled around her by an absent wind, caught in time. Her hands were raised above her head, palms up.

“It isn’t hooked up anymore,” Yang told her quietly. “But it’s a fountain. Draws water from the streams around campus and feeds them back out the basin to the falls. The water comes out in a dome, like she’s casting a shield.”

Ruby looked up reflexively at the dulled blue of the sky, its muted colour and the occasional ripples of iridescence that crossed her view betraying the presence of the much larger shield which covered the campus, its diameter stretching from the airship landings in the west to the outer boundaries of the dishevelled gardens in the east. That shield, however, was maintained by a vast circle of pylons linked up to the Tower, the product of cross-bred tech and not innate Gem abilities. It was also the reason why the warp was the only way in or out of Beacon.

One of the tall doors swung open easily at Qrow’s touch; he led them into the dimly-lit hall, the only source of light the skylights overhead. They never crossed the floor directly, for some reason, skirting around the edge of the chamber towards a descending staircase, as if avoiding the patches of light cast by the dimmed sun. They wound down into the basement, Qrow passing his hand over a sigil on the wall to illuminate the room. Ruby had been here before, too, and she knew where they were headed: a control panel set in a little alcove at the far end. She was surprised, though, when Qrow beckoned her closer.

“C’mere. I wanna show you how to work this.”

“Okay!” Eagerly, Ruby bent in as Qrow began pointing out the holographic switches and buttons.

“We bastardised this out of the door controls on an old wreck we scavenged back in the day. Here’s the code that unlocks the controls…right, now that button there used to be ‘open’, and that one was ‘close’. ‘Open’ lets the warp take input and give output to locations other than Patch. ‘Close’, well, it’s Patch or nothing.”

“That’s what it’s on now?”

“Mmhm.”

“Do all the warps have controls like this? I’ve never seen anything like this at the house.”

“Nope. The Beacon warp was built special by Rebel technicians so we could, eh,” he tilted his head, “pull up the drawbridge, so to speak. A few of us cobbled together the one on Patch after the war, made it special so it only worked to and from here. Paranoid, sure, but we were done taking chances by then.” He powered down the display.

“Thought we needed to get a move on?” Yang prompted, crossing her arms.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get your hair in a knot.” Qrow waved her off, heading back towards the stairs with Ruby and Yang trailing after him as before.

* * *

Ruby had closed her eyes on the distant city of Vale. She opened them now on a broad, multi-storied building with exposed beams and a curved roof; in the distance she could see a low wooden tower that looked something like the Animan pagodas she’d seen in books and movies. Which, _duh_ , she realised a moment later, wasn’t a coincidence. Neatly-tended Eastern gardens, sparse and precise, lined the square courtyard in which they now stood, tall ginkgos providing patchy shade, the trailing fronds of gnarled willows stirring in the gentle wind. And there _was_ wind; no forcefield stood between them and the pale blue sky.

The air felt thinner here, and slightly chilly. Ruby wished she’d left her hoodie on, even if it looked a little weird to wear it layered with her cloak. At least she had it rolled up in the bottom of the little backpack she wore under the cloak—she could always put it on if they wound up somewhere even colder.

“Welcome to Haven,” Qrow announced, looking around to get his bearings. “Stay close. Don’t wander.”

“Is it dangerous or something?” Ruby asked, following him.

“Nope,” Qrow said.

“Some of the buildings are medical wards,” Yang explained. “There’s a few that’re actually still for training, too, and the tower has what’s left of the Hunt’s administration. Haven’s not what Beacon was, but it can do the same job if it has to.”

“Haven used to specialise in medical treatment back in the golden age of Hunting,” Qrow added. “Once this place fell outta use along with Beacon and the other bases, people pretty much forgot about it until the Liberation Wars ended. The Atlas base stepped up when Beacon officially closed down a few centuries back, but they made ends meet by conscripting all their new Huntsmen into the military and making Huntsman training mandatory for a certain percentage of each branch. After Liberation, well.” A bitter little laugh. “Let’s just say the Faunus weren’t too thrilled about leaving things like that. Weren’t many Gems or humans happy with that idea either.”

“So we busted out the battle gear and went up there to tell ’em they were moving house,” Yang said with a grin, punching into the palm of her opposite hand.

“Close enough. The two of us stood there looking pissed-off while Summer and Oz made pointed diplomacy noises about how it would really be better if Vacuo or even Mistral had a base instead. ’Course, Vacuo was basically broke by then, so Mistral won.”

Ruby stifled a laugh. “I can _see_ you guys doing that.” She could: the pleasant, faintly apologetic smile Ozpin would be wearing as he never _quite_ threatened the Atlesian government, Qrow somehow managing to loom behind him despite his smaller stature, his heavy glower and Yang’s fierce flame-edged glare bracketing the two more conciliatory Gems. Her imagination wasn’t quite up to the task of envisioning Summer’s role in the proceedings. She remained an indistinct rosy shape amongst the others, nominally the central figure but inevitably out of focus.

“If I could’ve had a camera on me without breaking character, I would have filmed the whole thing and taken home Best Picture.” Yang held the door for Ruby to step into the hall, falling into step behind her and letting it swing shut on its own.

“You know, except for the part where there wasn’t a Motion Picture Academy back then because organics hadn’t invented movies yet.”

In the face of Qrow’s scepticism, Yang simply shrugged. “Eh. They got there eventually.”

The lights were on, here, and Ruby could hear the distant sounds of activity—not many people, nor were they loud. It was almost more like a sense of purpose and hominess than an actual sound, and it made a vivid contrast to the stark emptiness of Beacon. Qrow led them up one side of the double staircase.

“You called ahead, right?” Yang asked him. He waved her off impatiently.

“I’m rude, not stupid. I gave Leo a heads-up last week and confirmed yesterday. We’re expected.”

“So I guess this is the part where I ask where we’re going? Again?” Ruby prompted.

“Leo’s office.”

“…And…after that?”

“You’ll see,” Qrow said, not for the first time.

They never made it to their destination; the halls were sparsely populated, but one of the passers-by was an older man with a mane of greying hair, a scholar’s coat shrouding his broad frame, and his eyes lit up as he saw them.

“Qrow! My gods, how long has it been?”

“Leo.” Qrow’s smile was thin but genuine, and he reached past the man’s hand to grip his forearm instead, the gesture easily returned. Old forms, Ruby recognised, one warrior greeting another, a distant precursor to the modern handshake. This was a Huntsman, then. “Too damn long. How’ve you been?”

“Oh, much as I said when we spoke earlier. Even for us mortals, not much changes in a day.” He smiled ruefully and released Qrow, who stepped aside and gestured to Yang and Ruby.

“I don’t think you’ve met Yang…”

“Yeah, you weren’t born the last time I was here,” Yang said breezily. “’Sup.”

“Leonardo Lionheart,” he introduced himself, clasping her forearm. “Ametrine, correct? I’ve heard rather a lot about you. You’re quite the Huntress.”

Ruby could almost see the calculus playing out in Yang’s mind, deciding whether this flattery rated pleasure or suspicion. She seemed to land somewhere right in the middle, replying with a sunny smile and a slightly guarded “Well, I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“And this is Ruby. Rose Quartz,” Qrow added after a pause.

Lionheart’s gaze immediately snapped to Ruby, taking in her red hair, the cloak over her shoulders, and the Gemstone in her sternum. Ruby set her shoulders and lifted her chin.

“Yes. Yes, of course.” Lionheart blinked rapidly. “Taiyang’s daughter, yes? How is he doing these days?”

Something loosened in Ruby’s chest, and she smiled, relaxing. “He’s pretty good. I didn’t know you knew each other.”

“Ah.” He shook his head, a wry gesture. “All organic Huntsmen get to know each other at some point, if we keep at it long enough. We worked a few jobs together before he settled down for good. Not that I get out much myself these days. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Rose Quartz.”

“You too…!” She held out a hand, wincing internally; what the heck was she supposed to call him, anyway? ‘Mister’ was usually safe, but what if that was like refusing to call someone by their military rank? So would it be just ‘Huntsman’?

Lionheart was having an awkward moment of his own, though, and didn’t seem to notice her slip. He hesitated briefly, fingers twitching as if he might go for her wrist instead, before enfolding her hand in his own and giving it a firm shake. He turned briskly to Qrow.

“Well, best we get you what you need so you can be on your way before it gets any later. Follow me, please.”

Lionheart led them back along the route they’d taken to reach him, all the way back to the entrance. He turned to face that first curving double staircase—more specifically, the statue at the apex of their arc. If the woman here immortalised in stone had been real in some age gone by, Ruby could not identify her. Lionheart placed his hands flat on the dish the statue held aloft. It shimmered, a soft hum filling the air; then its eyes flashed, blazing a brilliant blue.

Lionheart stepped back and Ruby with him, having come a little too close to observe. The statue rotated in place, taking a large patch of floor with it as it vanished seamlessly into the wall. The surface which replaced it and the wall behind it was brushed metal, jarring in contrast to the gleaming wood of the rest of the floor.

Ruby let out a high-pitched sound. “You have a _secret passageway?”_

A flash of amusement crossed Lionheart’s lined face, a crinkling of his eyes and a twitch of lips and nose that reminded her of a cat twitching its whiskers. “A secret _lift,_ actually.” He gestured her forward. “After you. Mind the edge.”

They filled the lift without much jostling, though a fifth person—even one Ruby’s size—would not have fit. Lionheart laid his hand on an outlined patch of the metal wall, which hummed and shimmered just as the dish had. The lift shuddered and began to descend.

For a time, there was darkness, and Ruby wobbled, disoriented by her blindness. Fear flickered as she remembered the sheer drop-off that awaited past the edge of the lift, and her fumbling grasp caught hold of Qrow’s shirt. He put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. Then a soft, unearthly glow slowly seeped in.

The lift came to rest on the floor of a long, narrow chamber, lit by indirect light much like that in the basement at Beacon. It was gold-tinted, yet somehow still cold. Maybe that was the brushed metal of the floor and walls. Irregular boxy shapes lined the edge of the floor; they might have been machines with hidden displays and interfaces, or just ornamentation made to appeal to a literally alien aesthetic sense. The high ceiling was vaulted stonework fine as any cathedral; perhaps the roof of the cavern itself had been carved, whether it was natural or manmade. …Or Gem-made, Ruby supposed. It didn’t look much like Beacon or the sea-spire she’d visited and promptly destroyed on her first mission.

“What is this place?” she asked, looking up at Qrow.

“Geomonitoring station, from before the war,” he said—there was only one war a Gem would refer to in that tone of voice. “Not that we use it for that anymore; organic science has come far enough to make it pretty pointless to keep this equipment up and running. On the plus side, since no one has to be down here working, it makes a nice, secure vault.”

“Indeed.” Lionheart dipped his head in agreement as he stepped off the lift, leading the way deeper in. “Traditionally, Haven’s director is the only individual with access—well, aside from—”

He cut himself off, glancing at Ruby anxiously.

“Summer,” Qrow finished for him.

“Gotcha.” Ruby shoved down the old hurt and filed away _director_ for future reference. ‘Director Lionheart’? That sounded properly important.

“Hey, check this out!” Yang called, waving Ruby over to a softly-humming pedestal topped by a transparent sphere. It was about the size of a beach-ball, roughly two-thirds full of clear liquid.

“What _is_ that?” Ruby asked, bending down and staring through it, watching the meniscus wavering gently; the pedestal seemed to be keeping the liquid from standing stagnant.

“It’s—uh, actually, now that I’m about to say it out loud it’s kind of weird and gross.”

“It’s a reservoir of healing tears,” Lionheart said, approaching them, his hands clasped behind him. “Our only one. Among our other functions, Haven is a sanctuary and treatment facility for damaged Gems. These are for use in severe cases.”

Ruby wrinkled her nose. “…Are you telling me my mom used to come here and cry into this ball?”

Yang shrugged broadly, grimacing.

“Well.” Lionheart cleared his throat. “It’s been a valuable resource for us. Doubly so now that our supply is…limited.”

Ruby didn’t meet his eyes, newly uncomfortable at the reminder. A flash of movement caught her averted gaze, and she spotted a tuft of dark brown fur flicking against Lionheart’s ankle. He had a _tail,_ she realised, lashing in a restrained arc around his legs as if in distress or discomfort. It stilled abruptly, as if noticing her attention, and Lionheart cleared his throat again and turned away, a touch of colour on his cheeks.

“Right. We should—”

“Got it,” Qrow announced, brandishing a small, sleek cartridge traced with glowing lines of circuitry at them as he passed, quick-walking back towards the lift.

“—yes, of course.” Lionheart visibly shook himself, another feline mannerism Ruby could now explain, and delivered a rather stiff smile. “Shall we?”

Ruby couldn’t help looking over her shoulder at the orb of tears as she left, unsure of her own feelings.

Once they returned to the high, pillared entrance hall, Lionheart stepped back from their group, again folding his hands behind him. “Will you be returning the key this evening, or do you mean to hold onto it?”

“Tonight, hopefully,” Qrow replied. “If something comes up, we’ll stash it at Beacon until we can get it back to you.”

“Very good. Well, in the event you don’t return today, give my regards to Ozpin. And to Tai,” Lionheart added, glancing down at Ruby.

“I’ll tell him you said hello!”

“Take care, Leo,” Qrow said, tipping his head in a careless sort of nod.

“Be safe,” the old Huntsman counselled. He watched them depart, only heading for the stairs as Ruby slipped outside after Yang and let the door fall shut.

“So it’s a key. A key to what?” Yang wanted to know.

“Relax. We’re almost there. Just one warp to go.”

“Where?” Ruby asked.

“South. _Far_ south. Nearest town is Mokusei, but that’s not where we’re going. You packed your water, right Ruby? It gets pretty hot down there.”

“Yup,” Ruby confirmed, readjusting her backpack without really thinking about it. “And fruit snacks.”

“Dibs on the grape,” Yang said immediately, causing Ruby to make a face.

 _“Ew._ That’s the worst one!”

“Not if you can shapeshift your taste buds.”

“Alright, no micro-level shapeshifting on-mission. Save your energy.”

Yang gave Qrow an incredulous look. “Wow, okay, didn’t realise I was triggering your acute _fun allergy._ Sorry.”

Qrow sighed. “Look, I’m supposed to be hammering home the whole ‘responsibility’ thing, okay? It doesn’t come natural but I’m trying here. This is community service, not a field trip. Gimme a break.”

“I thought it was supposed to be educational,” Ruby protested innocently. “Doesn’t that make it a field trip?”

She giggled as Qrow swatted the back of her head.

“Smartass.”

* * *

“Hey, I think we’re here,” Yang declared, stepping out into the clearing. “At least I assume we were looking for the _massive shipwreck_ and not more rainforest?”

“Good guess,” Qrow drawled, reaching back to help Ruby clamber over a tangle of roots and dead growth; her combat boots weren’t doing too shabby of a job gripping terrain, and certainly they made it harder to roll her ankles than the hiking shoes had. She dodged a mechanical stake driven into the ground, one of several set around the edge of the clearing, and finally looked up.

“Whoa…”

She didn’t know if it was big in the grand scheme of spaceships, because she’d never seen one before, but that was definitely what this was and it was indeed to her eyes _massive._ Part of the hull was ripped open, a metal ribcage overgrown with vines, but it was mostly intact, less a few missing plates and panels, some of which Ruby thought she could see peeking out of the earth around the ship. Absently, Ruby lowered her hood and ran her fingers through her hair, grimacing at the feel of sweat gathered on her scalp; it was exactly as muggy as you’d expect a rainforest in South Anima to be, and her hood hadn’t helped matters, but it had kept the bugs off for the last few hours while they hiked.

“It doesn’t look _too_ busted up,” Yang said, voicing Ruby’s thoughts. “Five thousand plus years wasn’t enough time to patch that hole?”

“That’s not the only hole. Just the only one you can see from this angle. Most of the inner portions of the ship are still sealed and secure, but one of the engines imploded in orbit; that’s how she crashed.”

“What, like there was some kind of malfunction?”

Qrow smirked. “Some kind.”

“Space war,” Yang breathed, exchanging a look with Ruby. _“Nice.”_

“So what kind of ship was she?” Ruby asked eagerly as they approached the ship; they descended a shallow slope to get there, the ship lying in a still-healing furrow of its own making, long overgrown with greenery. “Like a super cool battleship, or a colony ship—ooh, was she a generation ship!?”

Qrow wrinkled his nose. “What would Homeworld do with a generation ship? Nah, she’s a science vessel, sent to investigate and document any new phenomena observed on the colony.” He said something in a rolling language Ruby didn’t recognise, punctuated by harsh fricatives. “Roughly means, uh, _information_ or _intelligence to illuminate the hidden,_ or _dark,_ or maybe _unknown._ Kind of on the nose, pretty clunky too, so we went with a looser translation.”

The Pearl pulled aside a curtain of vines to reveal a path into the ship’s skeleton, gesturing for Ruby and Yang to precede him. “Welcome aboard the _Lamp of Knowledge.”_

“Ooh, fancy.” Yang bobbed a mock-curtsey to Qrow before she stepped over a protruding bar and entered the ship. Qrow sneered after her, rolling his eyes.

 _“I_ thought it was cool,” Ruby assured him, patting his arm.

Qrow put a hand on her upper back, guiding her in. “I know you did. That’s why you’re my favourite.”

“I heard that!” Yang’s voice echoed strangely in the semi-enclosed space, only a few surfaces actually reflecting her voice.

Ruby picked her way carefully over the uneven floor, or maybe wall, or ceiling for that matter. Plant life was abundant in and around the patches of sunlight admitted by the ship’s battered frame, increasing the difficulty of movement. Even Yang was watching where she put her feet. Qrow, however, seemed to know exactly where to step, traversing the rough terrain with an easy grace.

She broke the silence at last when she finally caught up with him, scrambling slightly to make up for the discrepancy in their strides. “So why crash a science ship?”

“Knowledge is power.” When Ruby glanced up, Qrow was still staring directly ahead, intent on his path; his eyes were hard. “Any information or specimens gathered on alien worlds have only one purpose: to give Homeworld an advantage. Whether it’s new materials or technology to assimilate or a weakness to exploit. It’s a scientist’s job to gather data and mould it into actionable intelligence.”

“So their scientists fight, too?”

Something passed over Qrow’s face too quickly for Ruby to identify. “Homeworld doesn’t have civilians.”

They had reached what was unmistakably a door despite its impressive size and the alien technology of which it was crafted; it was edged by a dull red light, and set cockeyed in the wall, which made the angled surface beneath it most definitely a floor.

Yang eyed it dubiously, one eyebrow hiked up high. “That’s not ominous.”

“It’s just locked.” Qrow pulled out the little device from Haven, what Lionheart had called a key, and held it out. A tiny circular pane set in the door lit up the same colour as the key’s circuitry. The key trembled, then slowly rose a few inches into the air; Qrow lowered his hand and stood back.

The key remained hovering in midair, rotating gently until a beam shot out from the door, connecting with it squarely. It shuddered, glowing brighter, and then with little ceremony the lights around the door flipped from red to a soft blue, the beam cutting out and the key dropping. Qrow caught it easily, tucking it away again as the door _clicked_ and pulled open along an angular seam across its middle, the top half drawing up and the bottom sinking into the floor.

“Well.” Ruby took a deep breath. “In we go.”

“Go where, exactly?” Yang asked. “What do we need with an interstellar science lab?”

“The archives. Watch out for any scanners set into walls or doors. The security systems aren’t exactly, uh, _reliable_ anymore.”

They’d gotten a few paces in by the time it clicked, and Yang groaned. “This is still about that stupid drone thing in Forever Fall!”

Qrow tilted his head with a little shrug. “If all goes well, this’ll be the end of it. We let the _Lamp_ get an eyeful, she tells us what we’re all looking at, and we can take home an answer.”

“Why didn’t we do that in the first place?” Yang demanded. “Why don’t we _always_ do that?”

“Because the archives can’t run on power cells like the doors can and spinning up the _Lamp’_ s prime reactor just to ask ‘Hey, what’s this?’ is playing with something a hell of a lot scarier than fire.” Qrow began ticking points off on his fingers. “She wasn’t made to run in atmosphere, so we don’t have much of a window of safety before we have to drop the reactor right back into a cooling cycle. Some of the coolant tanks were damaged in the crash, so that cycle doesn’t work so great anymore, meaning it gets kind of toasty in here if we cut it too close. Worst of all, the _reactor_ isn’t in top shape anymore either, and now it vents a lot more than just _thermal_ radiation when we cycle it down, and some of those wavelengths’ll do interesting things to your Gem. So if we don’t get out fast and pop the rad shield—those posts outside, that’s what they’re for—we’re all screwed.”

He waggled those three fingers in a rippling motion at Yang, whose eyes had widened and jaw slackened in alarm.

“New question,” Ruby said, voice sliding a little higher than usual. “Why do we _ever_ do this?”

Qrow chuckled dryly. “Because think how stupid we’d feel if we didn’t and everything went to hell.”

Yang was incredulous. “How does a spaceship reactor going critical _not_ count as everything going to hell!?”

“Hey, hey. No one said anything about the reactor going.” Qrow held up his hands. “Relax, will ya? I know this song and dance. As long as we don’t do anything stupid, we’ll be fine.”

“That’s still a huge risk! What if something happens to—us?” Her eyes darted to Ruby briefly. “Are you seriously so worried about some hunk of busted metal that it’s worth putting all our _lives_ on the line!?”

“I don’t know!” Qrow burst out, throwing his hands up. “I don’t know, okay? And that line about how what you don’t know can’t hurt you? It’s _bullshit._ I don’t know if I should be worried, I don’t even know what I should be worried _about,_ and we don’t have Summer around to make these kinds of calls anymore so it’s up to the three of us—or I _thought_ it was, but _apparently_ it’s just me and Ozpin because _someone_ can’t be _bothered_ to do the _one! thing! we asked her to do!”_

Ruby flinched back, shocked.

“‘Can’t be _bothered’?”_ Yang echoed, clenching her fists. She flung out an arm. “Oh, I’m sorry I can’t be _bothered_ to live my life waiting for the other cosmic shoe to drop! I’m sorry I can’t wrap my head around this stupid idea you two are clutching onto _as hard as you can_ that anything you can’t _immediately_ explain away is a sign of the _end times!_ I’m _sorry_ you—”

“Do not—no, do _not_ stand there and give _me_ shit for bein’ careful when I just—”

“Guys, maybe we should—”

“—and it’s _completely—_ oh, oh _careful?_ Careful, that’s what we’re being right now, okay, sorry—”

Ruby tried again. “I just don’t think it’s really the time…!”

“— _I couldn’t tell_ with that freaking _laundry list_ of ways _Ruby could die here!”_

“Oh _now_ that’s a concern for you!”

Silence slammed down. Yang’s eyes went wide with hurt before her features hardened again, and she stepped back, turning away. Qrow’s glare faltered, uncertainty creeping over his face. His eyes darted as if scanning words on a page before him, lips moving in unvoiced syllables, sounds aborted before they could leave his throat.

“Yang,” he managed at last, voice rough. “I—I didn’t mean—”

“Come on,” Yang bit out, marching down the hall. “We’re burning daylight.”

Qrow turned pleading eyes on Ruby, who bit her lip, her hands still clasped to her chest defensively.

She was pretty sure she’d seen tears in Yang’s eyes when she’d turned.

* * *

Needless to say, the rest of the trip was significantly quieter. It was in silence Qrow keyed in the sequence that powered up the reactor core and set the whole ship softly humming, lights flickering to life overhead, and it was in silence that he led them to an oversized lift that slowly hoisted them upwards, letting out onto an identical passageway.

“So!” Ruby said finally, swinging her arms casually. “How does this part work?”

“In here,” was Qrow’s subdued reply, leading them through a door on the left-hand side.

It was a large hexagonal room, walls, floor, and ceiling all lined with softly-glowing irregularly-spaced circles of different sizes, some connected by glowing lines, others isolated. Strings of metallic shapes stretched from ceiling to floor, reminding Ruby of beaded curtains save that they were attached at both ends and thrumming with strange energy. They nearly bisected the room across the central corners, a gap broad enough for two, maybe three average-sized humans to walk abreast creating an aisle down the centre. Towards the end of that aisle was a pedestal topped by a blue-glowing, rounded shape almost like an onion, unmistakably mechanical but strangely delicate, smooth curves in a room full of sharp lines.

“You two stay behind the sensor arrays, okay?” Qrow gestured at the weird bead-curtain things. “There’s an identity scanner built in. It’s malfunctioning, so right now it only checks to see what type of Gem you are, and it might feel threatened by a Quartz. And neither of you are exactly standard-issue.”

“What if we covered our Gemstones?”

Qrow snorted. “Not a chance. You _might_ confuse the system if you crawled in under a lead box. Cloth ain’t gonna cut it.”

“Oh,” Yang breathed. “So that’s why—”

She cut herself off, shuffling her feet and glancing sullenly at Qrow.

“Yeah,” he said, and she nodded shortly, staring fixedly at the ground.

“Why what?” Ruby ventured, even as the oppressive atmosphere weighed on her.

“Why it’s usually me who comes here. You have to either be way up the hierarchy or have the right specialty to access the archives. Quartzes and Garnets are soldiers, either grunts or field specialists unless they’re specifically promoted—basically, one of you would have to be the _Lamp_ ’s captain of record, otherwise no dice.” He shrugged. “And you can’t trick the scanner through Fusion, either; it detects the component Gems as separate entities, even if you hide all but one, and unless you read out as an approved intra-caste ‘mega’-type Fusion, you know, two or more Gems of the same type Fused together, it’ll sic the security system on you. Which kind of defeats the purpose. Uh, why—w-why are you holding your hand up like that?”

Ruby continued to stand there as if frozen, silent and with her hand still raised, before finally managing to blurt out, _“I have questions.”_

“Oh crap, we never told you about Fusion!” Yang realised, and Ruby’s raised hand whipped down to jab a finger towards her.

 _“Yes,_ that, that thing, _what?”_

“So, it’s like, if you turn on one light the part of the room near it gets bright, right? And if you turn on a second light all the way across the room from that light—it’s a really big room—then you get another bright spot over there. But if you turn on a second light right next to the first light instead, it gets brighter because there’s _more_ light in one place.” Yang gestured at herself and then at Qrow. “We’re lights in opposite corners of that huge room. Well, actually, we’re the light the lightbulbs give off. I guess our Gemstones are the lightbulbs.”

Qrow buried as much of his face as he could in one hand, muttering under his breath.

“Thing is, no matter how close we get to each other, we’re always still separate bright spots. So Fusing is how you get the lightbulbs—our Gemstones—close enough together to make one big patch of light—one big Gem—instead of two smaller ones. Like screwing us into the same light fixture!”

Ruby tried to process that. “So you can…sort of…break down like you’re going to shapeshift, but then re-form _together…_ to make yourselves into something bigger?”

“It goes a little deeper than that,” Qrow protested.

“Yeah, you got it!” Yang declared, beaming.

“No, look, it’s—it’s really _personal,_ you know, it’s not like sticking two chunks of clay together! Sure, you got the whole ‘two Gems make one bigger Gem’ thing but it’s not about being bigger or stronger. That’s a side-effect. A really useful one sometimes, but the big thing about Fusion is that it makes something new.”

“So who’s in charge of the big Gem?” Ruby wanted to know.

“The big Gem is.”

Clearly Ruby looked as confused as she felt, because Qrow made a noise of frustration. “See, this is what I meant. Look, Fusion isn’t just two Gems stuck together.”

“Never said it was,” Yang muttered.

“It’s more like…a mixture. You know, you can have a little glass of gin and a smaller thing of vermouth, and that’s great and all, but you put those into one glass together and now you don’t have either of those things. You’ve got a martini. You following?”

“She’s thirteen,” Yang pointed out. “Why _would_ she follow that? At least my example used light, you know, something we’re actually _made of.”_

Qrow scowled. “What, underage drinking was your hard-and-fast line when you were dragging her around town all night?”

“She didn’t drag me anywhere,” Ruby said in a small voice. Qrow ignored her.

“Well, as long as we’re talking about leaving things out,” Yang said flatly, “you should also know Fusion works best with someone you’re close to. Like a good friend. Or _family.”_

She all but spat the last word, stalking off toward the right-hand set of sensors. She stood half-turned away from them, arms folded tightly.

“…Yeah. Family.” Ruby couldn’t decipher Qrow’s expression. “Better go on. The sooner we get this done, the better.”

She joined Yang, peering gingerly through the gaps between each slender wire column. Qrow walked straight down the centre, stopping in his tracks as the sensor arrays blazed to light.

An androgynous voice spoke in the same language Qrow had used earlier to identify the ship. Yang frowned, uncrossing her arms and leaning forward, cocking her head slightly.

 _“Gem,”_ she whispered. “Now it just said _Pearl_ …and I think that’s _alone?”_

The voice took on an impatient tone, as if it were demanding something, and Qrow quickly replied. Yang perked up at what he said.

“Oh! That was a Gem ID code, _facet_ and then a bunch of numbers and letters. Apparently Homeworld Gems _never_ have names,” she explained for Ruby’s benefit. “It’s not allowed.”

Ruby found that idea strangely unsettling. “I knew they _didn’t,_ but I didn’t know they _couldn’t._ Why?”

“Because they’re a bunch of totalitarian creeps? I don’t know, I’ve never even _met_ a Homeworld Gem, why’re you asking me?”

Qrow’s voice was getting louder as he responded to the system’s queries, exasperation obvious in any language.

 _“Are you serious?”_ he demanded, before snapping something in the Gem language.

“He just repeated whatever that was,” Ruby hissed.

“Yeah, I couldn’t make out any words I knew.”

Qrow said something else, and then Ruby heard a loud “Finally, _thank you,”_ from him as the object on the pedestal glowed brighter. “There’s gotta be some way of tricking this damn thing into thinking I’ve got my _own_ clearance…”

_“Analysis complete. Predictive analysis applied to previous linguistic input indicates this generated vocabulary is compatible with the provided language. Please confirm, User Pearl.”_

“Oh for— _Yes,_ I confirm, just let me talk to—”

A hologram coalesced above the pedestal. It was—or appeared to be—a woman, her entire body glowing the same turquoise-blue as the lights throughout the chamber, a colour almost like Hard Light Dust, Ruby realised. Despite that, she didn’t appear to _be_ a hard light construct herself, at least not the way a Gem was; her body was luminescent and ethereal compared to Qrow, whose shimmering grey complexion was tinted blue from all directions just like Ruby’s own skin.

“Jinn,” Qrow said, straightening his posture. The holographic woman smiled lazily.

“User _Pearl,”_ she purred. “Back again so soon. One of these days you will have to tell me _your_ designation to make things even.”

“One of these days,” Qrow agreed, smirking.

Jinn sighed. “So you always say. And we were getting along so _well_ last time. I thought we had a real…connection.”

Qrow chuckled nervously at that, shooting a furtive look towards Ruby and Yang. “Y-yeah, we. We sure did, heh…”

“…Do we wanna know what they’re talking about?” Ruby asked lowly. To her surprise, Yang didn’t immediately jump on board to speculate, offering up only a noncommittal grunt. She was watching Jinn quite intently, a slight frown creasing her forehead.

“Aw, are you _shy_ now?” Jinn smirked. “Adorable.”

“Let’s get to business, shall we?” Qrow suggested hastily.

She pouted. “Tease.”

Yang drew in breath sharply, prompting Ruby to slap a hand over her mouth.

“Shh!”

Yang made a muffled sound, pawing at Ruby’s hand. She dropped it, and Yang cupped her hands to whisper “AI! That’s an AI, it’s gotta be!”

“What?”

“Recall, recognition, nuance, detecting emotion, _expressing_ emotion—or faking it convincingly—going off on a tangent without being prompted, the natural speech patterns! She’s too sophisticated for a bot. She’s not a Gem, either, so she’s got to be an artificial intelligence! No wonder the archives are linked to the primary reactor—you can’t run an entire AI on battery power!”

“You got all that from Qrow having weird flirting time with the computer lady?”

“What?” Yang said defensively. “I read.”

“Computer science or science _fiction?”_

“I don’t like what copping to either of those things would say about me.”

“You remember these?” Qrow was asking Jinn, holding up a…

Ruby squinted, confused. “What the heck is that?”

“Three’n’a-half inch floppy disk.” Yang grinned. “That’s what video games used to come on!”

“Unfortunately,” Jinn sighed, holding out one large, shapely hand. “Your master needs better taste in storage technology, little Pearl.”

Qrow’s face twisted briefly in irritation, but he swiftly smoothed it out and shrugged. “It’s tried and tested. We knew you’d be able to read it.” He extended the floppy towards her, and Jinn delicately rested a fingertip upon it, closing her eyes.

“Mm. Interesting,” she murmured. “I do not recognise this design. I am now adding it to the archives.”

“You don’t…okay.” Qrow frowned. “Do you recognise any individual _parts_ of it?”

“I can identify the _function_ of certain pieces, but I would only be confirming the conclusions of the technician who compiled this report in the first place. The technology and its specifications are unfamiliar to me. Considering its condition, I am unable even to determine if it is superior or inferior to that of the Authority. I note a strong similarity in design sensibility to Homeworld devices with similar functions, but I have no record of this specific device or the pieces used in its construction.”

Qrow withdrew the disk, looking grave. He then produced a pair of small specimen jars, opening them and holding them out on his palm.

“The material of which the device was constructed?” Jinn asked, reaching out again.

“Samples from the casing and the chassis,” Qrow confirmed, pointing to the containers in turn. “The internal components were too damaged.”

“So I noticed. May I ask what happened to it?”

“It startled an armed Garnet.

Jinn made a sound of amusement low in her throat. “How unwise of it.”

“And then a Citrine set it on fire.”

The sound bloomed into a chuckle, rich and sweet. “If the casing weren’t cracked, I do not think the heat would have affected the machinery. It is a highly-refined form of…fibreglass.” She then quickly said a word in what sounded to Ruby like the Gem language before repeating, “Fibreglass. Please confirm translation.”

“Close enough,” Qrow told her. “The chassis?”

“An alloy of—” Jinn lapsed entirely into the Gem tongue, Qrow nodding along tensely. “Translation not available. My apologies.”

“No need. Do you have any record of either material?”

“No. This is my first exposure to each one. I am now adding them to the archives.”

Qrow grimaced as he screwed the lids back onto the specimen jars. “Gotta say, Jinn, that’s not the answer I was hoping for.”

“You know how I hate to disappoint you, but I cannot lie.”

“And I wouldn’t want you to.” He raked his hair out of his face, clenching his fingers briefly among the strands before letting go. “Just makes things a little complicated, is all.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

Qrow flashed a lopsided smile at the AI. “’Fraid not, gorgeous. That’s all I got for ya.”

“What a shame.” Jinn shook her head. Her form began to fade, seemingly drawn back down into the pedestal. “A damn shame…”

It was even more of a shame, Ruby thought, that Yang wasn’t up to teasing Qrow right now, as he immediately flashed them both an agonised look of abject mortification before hastily schooling his expression.

_Well. Guess that makes it my job!_

“So that’s _two_ living encyclopaedias stumped.” She peered around the sensor arrays at him. “Bad sign?”

Qrow held up a finger. “AI. Not alive,” and Ruby gasped.

“That’s a terrible thing to say about your special someone, Qrow!”

“Oookay, we’re done here,” Qrow decided, a mottled, glinting pattern briefly suffusing his body and especially his face—the Gem equivalent of blushing. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Are you sure?” Ruby grinned, tracing an arc on the floor with the toe of her boot. “We could leave you alone if you wanted to say a proper goodbye…”

“Oh, gross-gross-gross!” Yang exclaimed, waving her arms in front of her. Ruby cackled. The betrayed look on Qrow’s face made it even better, and she wobbled in place, not quite doubling over.

It still put her torso inside sensor range, and the blue lights immediately went red. Ruby’s laughter cut off sharply.

“Oops,” she heard Yang say, and glanced over to see the Ametrine hastily pulling away from the sensors. “I didn’t think I was—!”

“Y-yeah, that was me…”

_“Unauthorised soldier in Library Interface Centre, state your designation and mission. Unauthorised soldier in Library Interface Centre…”_

“Karma,” Qrow declared, jabbing a finger toward her chest as he half-ran toward the door.

“If we survive, it was worth it!” Ruby hollered, racing after him with Yang at her side. The Ametrine already had her gauntlets summoned.

“What kind of defenses are we looking at?” she yelled up to Qrow.

“Not much we can’t outrun by the time it sics ’em on us! It’s still waiting for input! It’s just a good thing it didn’t get a clear read on your Gems—”

A whining noise sounded overhead, and a red beam the width of the corridor swiped over them, painfully bright in Ruby’s eyes. Qrow swore loudly.

“Why do you people let me _say_ shit like that!?”

_“Nonstandard composition detected. Defective unit identified. Commencing euthanasia protocols.”_

“Is it talking about _me?”_ Yang demanded. “Oh _hell_ no!”

“What—what’s euthanasia?” Ruby panted.

Hidden panels opened in the walls, a horde of small mechanical _things_ pouring out, some skittering over the floor with entirely too many legs, others buzzing through the air on sharp-edged rotors. An energy beam seared past Ruby’s ear, and she yelped, clapping a hand to the spot and ducking.

“That answer your question?” Qrow shouted, summoning his scythe. Ruby frantically kicked one of the droids out of her way, calling out her own weapon. She hadn’t thought to will it into the same shape as Qrow’s, but she saw the shortened length of his slashes, the way he had to choke up on the haft and turn broad, sweeping motions into tight mincing half-steps. There was still an odd grace to it, but Ruby knew it for what it was: the mark of an expert who knew exactly how to compensate for the disadvantages imposed on him.

 _I’m not there yet,_ Ruby accepted, adjusting her grip on her rifle. “Hey! If you can cut a path I can give us covering fire behind!”

“Are you—?”

Ruby hoped ‘sure’ was coming, not ‘crazy’, but Yang cut him off.

“She’s got this! Do it!”

“Argh…!” Qrow growled, but he fell back a few paces, angling so that he and Yang formed a small wedge breaking through the tides of security droids like the prow of an ice-cutter. Ruby pivoted, swinging her rifle up and bracing the butt against her shoulder. With the Gems behind her and a swarm of enemies in front, she didn’t have to worry much about aiming.

She tried anyway, feeling a surge of satisfaction every time she hit a droid dead-on, but speed and persistence was more important here, she knew. A sniper rifle wasn’t the ideal weapon for this—she’d rather an AR or an SMG, or really anything with automatic fire based on her gaming experience—but unless she was ever lucky enough to befriend a Gem who could summon something like that, this was what she had.

Didn’t Dr. Oobleck have a flamethrower? Maybe she needed to spend more time with him outside of tutoring.

“We’re almost at the elevator! Keep it up!” Qrow shouted; the screeching of his scythe carving through metal was interspersed with the dull sounds of Yang’s fists pounding against the droids, the throaty mechanical clanking of her gauntlets firing. The reports of Ruby’s rifle, the droids or their remains ricocheting off the walls, rotors beating the air, spindly legs clicking, beams firing—the dark, red-lit corridor was a cacophony of sharp cracks and pops and blasts.

_I wonder if this is what it’s like inside a popcorn machine._

The thought struck Ruby out of nowhere, and she couldn’t suppress an out-of-place giggle before she shoved it away. She heard Yang shout and both of her gauntlets fire at once; flaming wreckage whipped past Ruby.

“They’re getting bigger!” the Ametrine reported.

“Door still works!” came from Qrow in an off-topic but timely response. Ruby backed up a few more paces, still firing, then swung the rifle’s barrel up and wheeled around, charging into the lift just after Qrow and Yang got there. Qrow held his scythe behind him with one hand, using the other to help Ruby into the car. Yang was reaching out, swatting droids away; she punted one with her foot just before the door clanged shut.

“What’re the odds we’re safe in here?” she asked.

“Slim.” Qrow stepped back from the control panel, planting himself in front of the door with his scythe at the ready. “But it’s a short ride down.”

“We still have to shut down the reactor,” Ruby realised.

“Yup. It’s gonna suck. Can’t risk a meltdown, though. Once the reactor’s down, it’ll take the main computer with it; should put all these machines back into sleep mode.”

“Okay. So Ruby and I are going to have to cover you while you do your thing.” Yang nodded, clenching her jaw. “And today just keeps getting worse.”

“You kidding? I thought you’d be loving this.”

“I’d love it if this whole _adventure_ didn’t come with absolutely zero payoff, or if we were fighting to _win._ Instead we’re trapped inside the world’s biggest junker hoping we can get out before we get nuked and that’s it, that’s what winning looks like! A+ discipline, would not step out of line again!”

“It’s _not—_ ugh, never mind.” Qrow shook his head sharply. “Lock down the attitude. We can talk about whether I deserve it _after_ we get outta here.”

Yang rolled her eyes. “Sir, yes _sir,”_ she grumbled.

Ruby heard Qrow growl under his breath, but he said nothing. The door opened.

“Clear!” he barked and took off running, Yang loping easily after him, Ruby pumping her legs hard to keep up with them both.

They burst out into the reactor chamber with all its machinery and kept going, Qrow intent on the power controls and Ruby and Yang doing their best to scan the room as they followed him. The Pearl banished his scythe and ran his fingers over the holographic panel, flipping through settings and menus faster than Ruby could follow.

“Alright, it’s cycling down!”

_“Insufficient power supply. Autonomous defensive units shutting down. Reallocating power reserves to integrated counteroffensive protocols.”_

Ruby’s hopes rose. “It means the robots, right? That means they can’t chase us anymore!”

Qrow grinned. “Sure does. I mean, it also means that every automated weapon built into the actual ship is going to try to shoot us on the way out, but that’s a science vessel for ya.”

“It’s still one less problem,” Yang said in weary relief. “Now we’ve just got to go back the way we came and—”

_“Unauthorized activity detected in Prime Reactor Control Room. Sealing doors.”_

They took off running for the far door before the announcement was even finished. The lights flipped to red just as they reached it.

“Oh no no _no_ come _on!”_ Qrow snarled, slamming his palms against the metal. Ruby had seen him break steel like it was glass. Whatever material the ship’s interior was made of, he couldn’t even dent it.

 _Oh no._ “Can we use the key?”

“No. This room can’t be accessed without high-level permissions. The key belonged to a mid-level soldier. That’s why the outer doors are the only ones we keep locked.”

“So what the hell happened!?” Yang demanded. “If you’ve been here before, why is this the first time the system’s freaked out about you messing with the reactor?”

“Science ships— _library_ ships like this one have their systems linked into the logic circuits of the archive interface AIs.”

Ruby looked up at the ceiling. “You mean the ship can _think?”_

“No, but it’s a real beast at connect-the-dots, and it can direct a counteroffensive suite like nobody’s business. _Damn it.”_ Qrow groaned, running his fingers frantically through his hair. “It saw me moving with you through the droids, traced our path to the elevator, noticed the reactor cycling down unexpectedly while the security alert was still going, and pieced together what was going on.”

“So—what, you _knew_ this would happen?” Yang’s voice took on a shrill edge.

Ruby exhaled slowly, setting her rifle down on the floor and pulling out her scroll to check it. _No signal._ Well, they were in the middle of nowhere and behind multiple plates of thick metal. It figured.

“I knew it _might!_ It’s still just a computer—it generates probabilities, not hard conclusions! I didn’t know there’d be enough residual power to let the system do something like this once it figured us out!”

“Oh, well, so glad you decided to bitch about my _attitude_ instead of warning us!”

“And what exactly could you have done if I _had_ told you? Complain about it some more?”

“We could have tried to come up with a _plan._ Remember _plans,_ Qrow?” Yang leaned in closer, glaring up at him. “They’re what smart people come up with to avoid getting into situations like _this!”_

“Guys, come on, please let’s not do this again…”

“Oh right, yeah, sorry, forgot I was talking to the master of forethought here. What the hell _plan_ would’ve helped?” Qrow spread his arms wide. “We _had_ to shut down the reactor! The external rad shield can only block so much radiation. What if the damn thing exploded, huh? This whole chunk of Anima can kiss its ass goodbye, animals, trees, people, everything!”

“What happened to ‘no one’s talking about the reactor going critical’, huh?”

“Guys—!”

“Yeah, well, that was before the system kicked into high gear trying to kill us!”

“Oh, gee, did you think you had everything under control and then suddenly it all fell apart? Whuh-oh!” Yang flung her hands in the air, exasperated. “Guess that means you don’t care about our safety and you’re a terrible person who should never be trusted with anything ever again!”

_“STOP IT!”_

Yang and Qrow both flinched, turning in shock to Ruby. She was breathing heavily, fists clenched.

“Just _stop,”_ she repeated. “This doesn’t help any of us! Qrow, you’re mad at Yang for something I did—something I _chose_ to do! And Yang, you’re just shouting back instead of trying to talk to him—”

 _“Talk_ to him?” Yang scoffed, pointing at Qrow. “He said I didn’t care if—!”

“I _heard_ what he said, Yang!” Ruby snapped. “And I saw the look on his face when it caught up to him. Qrow, was there something you wanted to say to Yang?”

“Why would I—?”

_“Was there something you wanted to say to Yang.”_

“Ruby, we are stuck in the belly of a derelict Gem vessel with no way to call for help and the only person who’d know to come save us, _if_ he can, won’t even _start_ to worry about us for _hours_ and he’ll have a pissed-off heavily-armed _spaceship_ to deal with when he eventually comes to find us _._ Is this really what’s important right now?”

“Apparently, yeah! Since you two are going to keep fighting instead of trying to help me find a way out of here, I guess getting you to actually _talk to each other_ is _exactly_ what’s important right now!”

Qrow took a step back.

“You’ve been needling Yang since Dad grounded me and she’s just been taking it because _she feels bad about what happened._ Then you crossed a line, and you _knew_ it, and she snapped!” Ruby put her hands on her hips. “But instead of apologising, you pushed the same button again in Jinn’s room when you were telling me about—”

Her eyes widened.

“About…Fusion.” She looked at the door, mind racing. “How _much_ bigger and stronger is a Fusion than a normal Gem?”

“Depends on the Gems,” Yang said slowly, following her gaze. “And the Fusion.”

“You’re not seriously suggesting…”

“Yes. I am.” Ruby turned back to them. “Why not? You guys have done it before, right? You’ve both Fused. I bet you’ve even Fused with each other. Family, right? You’re close enough. It’s been four thousand years. You have to have tried.”

“I mean, yeah, but we haven’t actually done it in…”

“…A couple decades,” Qrow finished heavily. “Longer, maybe. Ruby, look, it’s not that simple. You can’t just, poof, Fuse. You have to be…open to it. To each other.”

“You mean you can’t be nursing grudges,” Ruby said, crossing her arms.

He inhaled sharply. “Yeah.”

“So…?”

“No. No way.” But it was Yang who’d spoken, not Qrow. “Look, it’s not that I don’t want to get out of here, it’s not that I _like_ being stuck in some stupid cold war with Qrow, and…you’re right, I think Charoite might just be big enough and bad enough to bust through that door.”

“Charoite,” Ruby echoed, eyes shining, momentarily distracted from the gravity of their situation. “So you turn into a different _kind_ of Gem? Wait, why am I surprised, one of you can’t just turn into a Pearl or a Quartz, you _have_ to make something else together. Duh.”

“But an apology isn’t going to do anything to fix what’s wrong!” Yang addressed Qrow, now, speaking over Ruby’s mumbled epiphany. “It _hurt_ when you said I didn’t care what happened to Ruby!”

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Qrow said quickly, interrupting her. “I know you care. You’ve always cared. That was…stupid. Cruel. I don’t know why I threw that at you.”

“Because I seriously messed up and you weren’t sure it was true anymore?” Yang walked over to the nearest terminal bank, sitting down on the floor with her back against it, her forearms resting atop her knees. Qrow followed her a few paces before stopping, hovering about a yard away from her, his fingers working as if he were trying to figure out what to do with his hands, his arms; heck, his whole body. He seemed to vacillate where he stood, torn between drawing closer and pulling away.

“Yang, i-if I didn’t think you cared, I wouldn’t’ve gotten so mad. …Hell, I _shouldn’t_ have gotten so mad, anyway; it was obvious you felt horrible about it.”

Yang shook her head. “No, that isn’t what I was trying to get at. You were angry because I messed up. It was legit! I deserved it! And then I kept going off on you for bringing Ruby along on a mission even though I _know_ it’s different from what I did and I…!”

“…Is it really that different, though?” Qrow asked quietly. “Like you said. I lost control of the situation. Now it’s anybody’s game.”

“It’s different,” Yang insisted. “And lashing out about it was stupid, and petty. You don’t get to hurt someone just because you’re hurting.”

“No,” Qrow said after a pause. “I don’t.”

Yang blinked, looking up at him. “Oh—no, I didn’t mean _you_ you, I meant the ‘in general’ kind of you. Me. I meant me.”

“Yeah. I know.” Finally he closed the distance, sitting down next to her. Ruby held still and quiet where she was, as if they might notice her and startle like rabbits, breaking the tenuous peace of the moment. “But it works either way, doesn’t it? I was angry and scared, not hurt, but it worked out the same.”

“You were right though. Not when you said I didn’t care. But the other stuff…”

“You know that phrase ‘you’re not wrong, but you didn’t have to be a dick about it’? I wasn’t wrong. I’m not sure I was really _right_ either, ’specially by the time I was done, but I was definitely a dick about it. I’m sorry, Yang. I went too far, and I didn’t have one good reason for doing it.”

This seemed to frustrate Yang further. “No, don’t _do_ that. I’m in the wrong—I don’t _get_ to demand an apology!”

“Well, guess what, you don’t have to demand one to get one. You don’t even have to deserve it, if that’s your next objection,” he added as she opened her mouth again. “I think you do, though.”

“But I _don’t!”_

Qrow just looked at her. The edge of a smirk pulled at his lips.

“…Oh.”

“Oh,” he agreed, leaning back and letting out a sigh. “Neither of us’re really putting our best foot forward today, huh?”

“No. No, we really aren’t.” Yang had seemed to be relaxing, but now she curled tighter around her knees. “What about the patrol thing?” she asked softly. Tentative.

“Eh, what about it?” Qrow waved a hand lazily. “What’s done is done, no harm, no foul, don’t do it again and here we are. Trapped in a broken-down spaceship talking about our feelings. Kind of a low point, if I’m bein’ honest.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“I’m sorry too,” Yang said. “But yeah, you were being kind of a dick.”

Qrow shrugged. “That’s my brand.”

Yang laughed, the sound bursting out like it had been startled from hiding. Qrow chuckled too, smiling a little. She punched him in the shoulder—a little heavier than she normally did to Ruby, if the way Qrow rocked with the motion was anything to go by. _“Jerk.”_

“See, now you’re just insulting me for the fun of it. Show your elders a little respect.”

“Oh, I got plenty of respect for you, gramps. Got a whole boatload of respect. Respect out the ears.”

“I am _so_ glad you said ea— _ack!”_

“Whoa!”

Ruby catapulted into them as a burst of petals, impacting them as a solid force with an arm around each of them, almost knocking their heads together. “So you’re done fighting now?” she asked plaintively, the words muffled in Qrow’s shoulder. “Because it was getting really awkward and I’m sorry I shouted at you guys but I didn’t know how else to get you to stop and—”

“Ruby, Ruby,” Qrow cut her off. She looked up at him, and he grinned, rubbing a hand forcefully over her scalp. She yelped, pulling away.

 _“Gah!_ What is with you people and my hair!?”

“Hey, it’s not just yours.” Qrow reached out toward Yang. She shot him a searing glare, and he pulled his hand back like it had been burned. “Eheh…”

Yang’s expression softened. Then, hesitantly, she reached up and tangled her own fingers in her hair, ruffling it thoroughly.

“Best you’re getting,” she told him, hauling herself to her feet. Ruby got up as well, a process that involved a little more scrambling as she was half-sprawled on Qrow’s lap thanks to her incautious landing. Yang held out her hand to Qrow, who took it, letting her help him up.

“So we really gonna do this?” he asked. Yang shrugged.

“I’m not seeing a lot of other options. Why, you nervous?”

He certainly looked it, every line of him tense, uncertainty creeping over his face. If he were an organic, Ruby thought he would probably be sweating.

“I haven’t done this in awhile,” Qrow said, his voice small. “With anyone. Not since…”

“Yeah,” Yang admitted. “Me either. But it’s not like you forget, right? We’ve done it before. We can do it again.”

Qrow jerked his head in a nod.

“So how does this work?” Ruby inspected them closely, as if the instructions might be written on them somewhere. “Do you like, hold hands and chant some cool mystic rhyme, or shout to focus your _chi,_ or stand close and meditate on your deep knowledge of one another…?

“Why do you always assume Gem powers work on anime logic?” Qrow asked her.

“Because they mostly kinda do?”

“Or! Or, does _anime_ work on _Gem logic?”_ Yang suggested. “We were here first.”

“It’s not any of those things,” Qrow said. “Some Gems get so attuned to each other they can Fuse from a single instant of contact. But most of us need more than that.”

“Something that makes you focus on a partner, on what you’re doing and what they’re doing and how it all comes together, without overthinking it.”

Qrow gave Yang an alarmed look, and she recoiled, mirroring his expression.

“Dancing! I’m talking about dancing! Sorry if that wasn’t clear.” She shuddered. “Eugh.”

Ruby frowned. “The key to Gemkind’s super-secret ultra-power tactic is…dancing.” _Of course it is. It couldn’t be something I’m_ good _at, could it?_ “Does it have to be like a specific _kind_ of dance, or…?”

“It’s whatever feels right. It has to be natural. You can’t force a stable Fusion.”

“Uptempo for me,” Yang chimed in. “House, electro, the non-stuffy kind of flamenco. Whatever’s fun, fast, and a little bit crazy.”

“Working title of your autobiography?”

“And _Qrow_ likes a tango,” she added brightly, grin widening as he cringed slightly. “Hey, you asked the sexy giant database woman to tango yet?”

“You know what, shut up and move your feet, let’s get this over with.”

He spun her out, moving his feet gracefully, and—well. Ruby didn’t know much about dancing. If she had, she would have known she was looking at something approximating swing dance with perhaps a touch of salsa. All she really knew, though, was that Yang seemed to be doing a lot of spinning, Qrow needed a lot of tight footwork and graceful arm movements to keep up, and when she looked at their faces she saw the tension and fear slipping away. Their steps grew looser, easier, but still kept perfect time even without any music. They were relaxed. They were having fun, Ruby realised, and couldn’t help smiling to see it. They were happy—they were _glowing._

They were _literally_ glowing, their bodies shifting, glimmering until they were just motes of light intermingling in the same fast, rolling rhythm as the dance. She watched, awed, as the light built and spread, the dark points of Qrow and Yang’s Gemstones drifting through the air and settling at a distance from each other that Ruby hadn’t expected. A distance that grew as the unmistakable shape of a very large right arm extended from the cloud of light, Yang’s Gemstone seated as always just below the elbow. It had turned opaque, its familiar gradient of violet and yellow replaced by different shades of purple that swirled around each other beneath its cut face. Some shades were like the lilac of her eyes; others were so dark as to be indistinguishable from black.

Swiftly but gradually, the rest of Charoite’s body filled in, Qrow’s Gemstone hidden from view as the Fusion’s torso solidified. Their body was a dusty shade of violet-grey, mottled very slightly with paler patches that hinted at the yellow that was Yang’s primary colouration; the different shades of grey bled seamlessly into each other, at least at the points Ruby could see. Most of Charoite’s skin was hidden by the long, wide-legged charcoal-grey trousers they wore, almost like hakama, and their wrapped shirt of creamy off-whites and rich browns. Their feet were socked and sandalled, but not the way Taiyang wore the combo—these were those fancy Mistralian platform sandals, what were they called again? Geta. Their hair was streaked purple like their Gemstones. It was full and wavy, falling to their shoulders, and once they had fully materialised they tucked one side behind their ear with a soft snort of exasperation.

“The sacrifices we make to look this good, am I right?” they asked Ruby sympathetically, winking at her. At least Ruby assumed winking was still the right word to describe the sight of two out of four eyes blinking at her, both on the right side of Charoite’s face: one set of eyes was a shocking orchid-pink, the other blue-violet, those latter two set above the outside corners of the first, pink pair. Thankfully, they still only had one set of eyebrows. These arced down at a shallow angle from about halfway over the bluish eyes, ending high above a point just past centre on the lower eyes, giving the Fusion the appearance of a permanently sly, slightly mocking expression.

“Well?” Charoite prompted, holding out their arms, presenting themselves for inspection. “What do you think?” The words came out almost teasing in their androgynous contralto, but Ruby knew the features which made up the face of this familiar stranger, and she thought she saw a flicker of uncertainty there. Her own trepidation melted away.

“You look amazing,” she assured them. Her wide smile turned slightly nervous as she added, “It’s…nice to meet you?”

Charoite laughed, their shoulders relaxing. “I guess you _are_ meeting me, even if I already know you, huh?” They lifted a hand. “I’d shake your hand, but I think I’d end up shaking _you.”_

“You, uh. You _are_ kinda tall.” Ruby laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck. Charoite was about the same size Jinn had been, standing more than twice as high as Ruby’s own admittedly short stature. Her comment earned another rolling, rich laugh from the Fusion.

 _“Oh,_ I wish Oz were here. I make him feel short, he _hates_ it _so much!”_ Charoite clapped their hands together in delight. “Oh! I almost forgot. Hang on…”

They reached behind themselves, unfastening Qrow’s cloak which had, Ruby was surprised to see, made it through the Fusion unchanged. Charoite wrapped it around their neck like a scarf—like _Yang’s_ scarf, though it left less of a gap between its ragged lower edge and Charoite’s higher neckline.

 _“There_ we go,” the Fusion said in evident satisfaction. “I love the thing to bits, but I can’t have it fouling my wings, now can I?”

_Wait._

“What?”

The word was barely out of Ruby’s mouth before a pair of great black wings unfurled from Charoite’s back, feathered and crowned by sharp talons; that and their curvature recalled the wings of a bird of prey—or perhaps a dragon?—more than those of Qrow’s eponymous favoured other shape, but the plumage was unmistakable.

“Come on,” Charoite said playfully, rolling all four of their eyes in perfect unison. “Who needs a second set of arms when you could have _these_ beauties instead?”

“Okay, you might actually be the coolest person I’ve ever met,” Ruby squeaked, pressing the knuckles of her folded hands together in front of her mouth.

“Hell yeah I am. No ‘might’ about it.” Charoite smirked. “Well…the other kind of _might,_ maybe. And that makes as good a segue as anything else. Ruby, hon, would you mind getting behind me? And get ready to run as soon as I say. Things are about to get a little _explosive.”_

Eyes widening, Ruby hastened to comply as a familiar shimmering at Charoite’s wrists heralded the appearance of Yang’s gauntlets. The Fusion punched their fists together, and the gauntlets blazed with light, shifting and changing; when Ruby could see them again, they had grown to cover Charoite’s hands right up to the knuckles, a curved blade like that of Qrow’s scythe forming a smooth, wickedly-sharp arc across each hand. Then Charoite lashed out with both fists, blades gouging into the door with an unholy shriek. The Fusion yanked them free and kept hammering at the door, which bent and buckled and warped under the onslaught until finally it exploded out into the corridor, taking bits of the surrounding bulkhead with it.

“Go!” Charoite shouted, ducking down and barrelling into the corridor. Energy blasts fired from concealed turrets Ruby hadn’t noticed on the way in as she stumbled after the Gem. Charoite seemed to be having trouble dodging them on account of their size, snarling in pain as one blast sizzled against their shoulder.

“Wait!” Ruby called. “Don’t get too far ahead!”

“I won’t leave you,” Charoite vowed—which was actually really touching, Ruby thought with a little buzz of happiness, but not what she meant.

“If we’re close, I think I can shield us!”

They laughed wildly. “I won’t say no to that!”

Ruby focused, willing the shield to come into being, and a rosy-red bubble blossomed around them. Strangely, while the energy beams glanced right off it, the sounds of weapons fire were still quite audible, only slightly muffled.

 _“Uhn.”_ Ruby grunted as the effort of maintaining the shield suddenly made itself known; it felt like she was carrying a weight much heavier than her backpack on her shoulders.

“You okay?” Charoite asked in alarm.

“Y-yeah, just, we need to hurry,” Ruby panted. “I don’t think I can keep this up for long. Oh—!”

Charoite half-turned—all they could manage in the confinement of the corridor—and scooped her up in both of their large hands, cradling her against their chest. Ruby hooked her arms over their shoulder.

“You don’t have to—”

“No shame in not using your own two feet, ’specially when mine are more than big enough for all of us,” Charoite said briskly. “You keep that fire off us. I’ll get us out of here.”

 _"Unauthorised Fusion detected,”_ the _Lamp_ ’s systems announced. “ _UnFuse immediately and report to your superiors for disciplinary action or you will be fired upon until discorporated. This is your only warning. Your compliance is mandatory."_

Charoite shouted back some awfully detailed ideas of what the system's disembodied voice could do with its mandatory compliance, and Ruby winced. Yup. There was no denying which Gems Charoite had Fused from.

Suddenly Charoite slammed to a stop, and Ruby felt a growl building up in their chest. “Oh you gotta be _kidding_ me!”

“What? What is it?”

“A sensor grid.” Charoite swore. “It could _just_ be sensors, or it could be tripwires, or something even worse that I’m not sadistic enough to dream up.” They were moving again, even as Charoite continued to explain. “Doesn’t really matter either way. This shield’s too damn big for you to hold up under fire while I knock down all the doors between us and whatever other exit there might be. This is the last intersection before we’ll be back where we started; there’s no telling how far through the ship we’d need to go or what kind of permissions we’d need to get there.”

“Wait, but what if I can’t hold the shield against whatever’s about to hit us!?”

“Not an option!” Charoite looked down at her, four-eyed gaze unusually intense and serious. “You got this, Ruby. The way Yang and Qrow believe in you? I have _all_ of that. Hell, I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t knocked some sense back into them—I might as well be _made_ of that. Faith, kiddo, faith. We can do this. We’re gonna be okay.”

“We’re gonna be okay,” Ruby repeated. “We can do this. We can do this.”

“Alright. We’re almost there. Three…two…”

“I can do this,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Here we go!”

Ruby pushed energy into the shield, feeling it nearly buckle as the world exploded into thunderous noise and hot white light that shone mercilessly even through her eyelids.

 _“Son of a—!”_ she heard, the rest of Charoite’s numerous invectives lost in the tumult of sound. Ruby curled more tightly against them, letting her focus narrow to the sound of her own ragged breathing and the terrible necessity to keep the shield up no matter what, even if it hurt, even if it felt like she was being compressed by the force pressing on the outside of the bubble.

Charoite’s war cry cut through the cacophony; their body gave a lurch, and all the air in Ruby’s lungs pushed right out of her body in sheer _relief_ as the pressure abated, her eyes flying open. She saw forked bolts of electricity still arcing through the corridor behind them.

“Talk about catching lightning in a bottle, huh?” Charoite said brightly. “…No? Nothing?”

“Your Yang is showing,” Ruby wheezed.

“Yeah, she comes out more under pressure. Adrenaline junkies. What’re you gonna do? Watch your head!”

Charoite ducked as they warned her, and Ruby hunkered down, seeing the doorframe just miss the crown of the Fusion’s head. And then they were out, free and clear, in the dappled grey shadows and skeletal remains of the _Lamp of Knowledge’_ s outer hull. She could see stars through the gaps overhead.

“You can drop the shield now, hon,” Charoite assured her. Ruby let it go with a long sigh, slumping in the Fusion’s hold.

“Let’s never do that again,” she mumbled, pulling another laugh from them.

“No promises.”

* * *

Charoite alighted a few yards away from the warp pad near Mokusei, setting Ruby down gently on legs that felt like they might finally be willing to support her. The moonlight turned the surface of the warp to silver.

“We’re going straight home,” Charoite said. “Well, as close to straight as possible. Beacon, then home. Someone can get the key back to Leo tomorrow.”

“Mmkay,” Ruby agreed, stifling a yawn. “Will I ever stop being so sleepy after missions? Feel like a toddler missing her afternoon nap…”

“I wouldn’t really know, would I?” Charoite pointed out. “Well. The key needs to be locked up in Beacon, and you need to get home to Patch, which sounds a whole lot like I need to be two people again. Kind of a shame. I missed being out and about.”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing you again.”

“I’m sure you will.” With one last smile, Charoite glowed, their light drifting apart, their Gemstones dancing through the air, each pulling a measure of that light towards themselves. Soon it had gathered into the discrete forms of Yang and Qrow, both of whom looked nearly as tired as Ruby felt.

“Oh my _gawd_ why did we run into a tunnel of lightning?” Yang groaned. “It was metal as hell but holy _crap.”_

Ruby hugged her tightly, the Ametrine returning the gesture without missing a beat; she felt Qrow rest a hand on her back between Yang’s.

“We good, firecracker?” he asked softly.

Yang gave Ruby another squeeze. Her hand shifted so Ruby could no longer feel it, though her arm remained in place. Resting it on top of Qrow’s hand, Ruby realised, and smiled.

“Yeah. We’re good.”

* * *

Qrow was still debating internally whether he or Yang should see Ruby home when they materialised on the Beacon warp and his decision was made for him.

“You girls go on ahead,” he said, patting Yang’s arm as he stepped down. “We’ll be along shortly.”

“‘We’? Yang echoed, following his gaze. It was earlier in the evening on this continent, the sun having just set, but it was dark enough for her to easily see what he had: there was a light in the clocktower, shining softly through the glass face. “Gotcha. I’ll make sure Ruby gets something to eat before she crashes.”

“Not gonna crash!” Ruby protested, nearly bouncing in place. “I slept through part of the flight over! I’m awake now!”

Yang shrugged. “Hey, I just feed you and make sure you’re near something you can collapse on. That is my expert childcare technique. The rest is up in the air.”

“Hey! I’m going to be fourteen in a few months, you know!”

 _“Five_ months.”

“Four and a half!”

“Oh, we’re startin’ early with this, this year.” Qrow raised his hand in farewell as Yang warped herself and Ruby away while the hybrid girl was still mid-argument. He shook his head, chuckling, and tucked his hands into his pockets, walking slowly down the central path through the courtyard, past the arches and the sounds of running streams, past the Autumnal Bloodwoods that were the only known specimens to take outside Forever Fall. He could imagine they were standing guard over Summer’s stone form; he sure trusted them better than the knot of invented Huntsmen and Huntresses carved around her. Not that he wanted to see his _own_ face there, but there were others, fallen friends who’d deserved a place at her side.

Summer had put her foot down on that, though. _“It’s more propaganda than art,”_ she’d said. _“It can be as beautiful as it wants, but it’s there to remind people that the_ great Rose Quartz _is watching over them.”_ She’d rolled her eyes, her voice taking on a softer tone as she added, _“I won’t use our friends like that.”_

Qrow had wanted to argue, because the fountain had promised to be a beautiful piece even in the earliest planning stages and he didn’t think it deserved that level of cynicism, but Summer had set her jaw in that way Ruby did now, the way that said she’d made up her mind on some level too deep to be moved. And after all, the fountain was never meant to be a memorial to the dead, because Summer was never meant to die.

He’d formed Charoite today, against all expectations. He wondered if he’d ever form Almandine again.

He shook the thought out of his head, picking up the pace. He could have shifted forms and flown up to the tower, but there was a peace to be found in the routine of walking across campus, even if the Academy was gone and Beacon was silent and empty, every lamppost and window cold and dark save the one which drew him on. The route was achingly familiar, from the stone underfoot to the way the gentle wind wound between the buildings, carrying with it the scents of summer growth and high mountain air—blunted now by the presence of the barrier, but still faintly present. How many times had he done this? And how many decades since he last had?

The tower doors were unlocked, of course, and Qrow threw them wide for old times’ sake, remembering the days when they stood open all hours in such clement weather as this. The ground floor of the tower was even darker than the rest of campus, illuminated only by what little light spilled through the open doors, but Qrow could find his way here blindfolded. He skirted the base of the transmit tower, heading for an elevator; he could see they were powered on, their switches backlit in a tealish green.

Qrow’s fingers keyed in the access code for the former headmaster’s office without any conscious input from him, habit ingrained over thousands of years that mere hundreds had failed to erase, and the elevator rose swiftly. It was a smoother ride than the _Lamp_ ’s long-neglected lifts, and without fighting years of disrepair it ran faster as well, delivering him to the top of the tower in under half a minute. The doors retracted and he stepped out into a familiar tableau: Ozpin at his desk, still in motion as he looked up past the holo-interface to see who had entered. A few things were missing—for one, the office was lit only by the lighting strips around its edge, not even a faint glow of green shining through from above. For another, the desk was empty, no pens or paperwork, not even a mug of cooling cocoa. Strangest of all was the quiet, the clicking of the gears in Ozpin’s desk barely louder than the sound of a wristwatch, the axles and cogwheels overhead still and silent even as Qrow’s ears strained to hear them turn.

“Qrow.” Ozpin’s voice was too soft to echo in even so spacious and empty a room as this. If he weren’t a Gem, the sound of it would make Qrow think he’d woken him from sleep. “What news?”

“Not much. Jinn didn’t know what to make of it. Says the design looks Homeworld but she can’t match it to anything.” He paused, almost reluctant to say what came next, but Ozpin was looking at him expectantly. “She described the materials used as ‘refined’. And she didn’t recognise the metal, but the composition…it’s mostly non-terrestrial elements.”

Ozpin exhaled air he must have drawn in out of acquired habit, leaning back in his chair. His green fingers worked their way into his hairline, tugging and combing through it, briefly exposing his deep green Gemstone and the characteristic silvery wisps at its heart before he seemed to realise what he was doing, dropping his hand and clenching it into a fist.

“Something developed in the last days of the war, perhaps?” he suggested. “After we brought down the _Lamp_ but before the final battle? Jinn wouldn’t have access to anything added to Homeworld’s archives after the crash.”

“Could be,” Qrow said, because it was a possibility and it was one they both needed to latch onto for sanity’s sake. “It’s more likely than the alternative.”

“Is it?” Ozpin murmured. “A shame we couldn’t get a more conclusive answer. Still. Any information is better than none. How were Yang and Ruby?”

“Um…” Qrow tilted his head, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets as if that would help somehow. “Little rocky at first with Yang. We worked it out. Had a talk. Blew some shit up. Unrelated, a scanner identified Yang as an off-colour and the entire ship tried to kill us.”

“Oh dear.”

“Yeah. None of the three of us should go back there until someone can wipe the records of us from the security system. Plus side, Ruby’s getting better with that gun. Ruby’s getting better, period, actually; think there’s some good coming out of those nights she spent playing superhero.”

“Hm. Perhaps we should speed her training along.”

“Probably not a bad idea.” He’d been trying to find a good segue, but nothing was presenting itself and he had to say it or he was going to explode. “Also Yang and I Fused.”

It wasn’t often he got to strike Ozpin speechless, and he couldn’t keep a grin off his face as he savoured the blank mask that Ozpin’s features immediately schooled themselves into—his equivalent of wide eyes and a gaping mouth.

“You formed Charoite?”

“Yep.” Qrow bounced slightly on his toes, still grinning with delight.

The mask fell, and Ozpin smiled as well, warm and pleased. “That’s wonderful, Qrow.”

“Oz, we _Fused!”_ he burst out, not caring that he was repeating himself. “And it was—it was amazing, like before, I don’t know what I was scared of—!”

“Alright, alright.” Ozpin gestured for him to calm, his tone edged in laughter. “It’s a good thing you don’t need to breathe, my dear; you’d asphyxiate from excitement.”

“Oh, just let me have this!”

He chuckled. “Certainly.” The Garnet braced himself against the desk as he stood; Qrow didn’t see his cane. He must have had it collapsed and tucked away. “How was Yang?” he asked, circling the desk.

“She was Yang. Threw herself into it and didn’t look back.” Qrow beamed, his expression softening as he turned to meet Ozpin face-to-face. “I miss being like that.”

“Speaking as someone who cares, it was incredibly stressful when you were like that.” Ozpin’s smile turned wry. “I’m glad you’ve learned to take better care of yourself. And I’m glad you’re able to open yourself up so completely to another person again.”

“I was thinking…” Qrow looked away. “If I can Fuse with Yang…” He eyed Ozpin sidelong, silent, hopeful.

Ozpin watched him for a moment. Then he reached over, sliding his hand along the glass surface in a gesture that brought the light strips around the edge of the ceiling up to a brighter glow. Qrow kept his eyes on him as the Garnet walked a few paces out towards the centre of the tower floor.

Ozpin turned back to face him and held out a hand, eyes sparkling. “Well, old friend?”

Smiling, Qrow stepped forward and placed his hand in Ozpin’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Charoite's design isn't just gratuitously Japanese; I'd always intended for them to have wings in lieu of extra arms, and somewhere around the point that I was trying to figure out 'pants or skirt'? my brain spun up hakama. That tripped a chain of dominoes that ultimately came to rest at karasu tengu, a winged swordsman yōkai inspired in part by a crow and which you've probably seen somewhere in the great wide world of Japanese and Japanese-inspired media. So that became the chief basis for Charoite's design.  
> Next chapter: More Weiss, more Zwei, more worldbuilding. Thanks for reading! See you then!


	7. Honalee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So _technically_ Ruby's still grounded—as in, less than 12 hours remaining to freedom—but somehow she's convinced _someone_ to okay a sleepover with Weiss. As long as said sleepover takes place on Patch, allowing Ruby to keep to at least the letter of her punishment until the clock runs out. Weiss has mentally prepared herself for her first night away from the lap of luxury, and she's done her best to brace for Ruby's Gem family's special version of 'normal', but the biggest curveball coming her way—and Ruby's—comes from the direction she least expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup, short chapter. Sort of. There's a reason for that. And it's only partly the fact that it's been a relatively long time since I updated and I was starting to feel anxious about that. But this is end note business, and I'll leave the rest 'til then. In the meantime, read on! As always, I hope you enjoy!

It put a smile on Weiss’s face to think how much her father would _hate_ the thought of her travelling alone, _especially_ via public transportation—enough of a smile to displace her own vague discomfort with crushing into a full airbus. If it bothered her father _that_ much, surely he’d have provided an alternative; she’d be going to school on Patch every day, and it wasn’t like there was a bridge spanning the channel. The plan as currently outlined involved Klein making a round trip each at the start and end of her school day, but Weiss certainly wasn’t about to put him through all that for a frivolous visit like this.

She knew it was _technically_ dangerous to be a Schnee going around unguarded, but Winter had taught her some self-defense, and her sun hat kept her distinctive hair from catching the light as much and drawing attention. Besides, she’d never been so much as threatened back in Atlas; here in Vale, surprisingly few people seemed to even realise she was anyone worth paying attention to. It was a little annoying, but something of a relief as well. She’d never realised how… _stifled_ she’d felt before, with everyone’s eyes on the heiress-presumptive of the SDC. Winter had never renounced her inheritance, nor had their father disowned her, but the rumour mill of Atlesian high society had been convinced that one of those two scandals was on the horizon ever since Winter had joined the military.

For now, though, Weiss remained the spare and not the heir, and if that gave her a little more freedom to move around? So much the better.

She was still relieved when she was able to disembark, though, unable to suppress a small shudder when she was _finally_ done being crowded by strangers. She held the strap of her overnight bag tightly as she lifted her chin and strode through the throng as best she could, scanning around the terminal for the exit. Then she’d need to double-check the directions Ruby had texted her and—

“Weiss-Weiss-Weiss over here!” she heard, turning towards the source of the high, excited voice. She saw Ruby on tip-toe next to a vending machine, a pack of cheap cookies clenched in one hand while the other frantically waved. The hybrid girl beamed once she saw Weiss change direction towards her.

“Aren’t you still grounded?” Weiss asked dubiously, raising an eyebrow. “Aren’t we specifically doing this at your house _because_ you’re still grounded?”

Ruby wrinkled her nose up like a disgruntled cat. “It’s the last day. I talked Qrow and Ozpin into letting me come get you so you wouldn’t get lost! We’re not allowed to take any detours, though. Straight home!”

“I could have found my way,” Weiss said, stung.

“I mean, probably, but this is the first time they’ve let me out of the house unsupervised in _ten days,_ Weiss.” She hugged the vending-machine cookies close to her chest, staring at Weiss with wide, pitiful eyes. “I haven’t had junk food in almost two weeks. Qrow hid the snack basket somewhere and none of us can find it.”

“…Neither of you, you mean.”

Ruby shook her head solemnly. “He didn’t want Ozpin leaving anything out where we could get it. Ozpin’s been too proud to say anything but I’ve caught him searching. Wouldn’t admit that’s what he was doing, though. He is _smooth_ under pressure.”

“So…you used me as an excuse to reach the bus station vending machines.” Weiss sighed, rubbing her forehead. “I guess it’s better than you thinking I was incompetent…”

“You are my best friend and your wellbeing is very important to me,” Ruby said over the sound of straining polymer, punctuated by a muted _pop!_ as the bag tore open. “C’mon. We’d better get going so I don’t get in trouble. That’s everything, right?” she asked, looking at Weiss’s bag.

“Yes.” With a touch of pride, she added, “I learned how to pack compactly from Winter.”

“Cool! I figured you’d pack light for a sleepover, but I didn’t wanna charge off if you had more stuff.”

“Compactly,” Weiss repeated, hiking the strap into a different position on her shoulder. “Not lightly.”

“Oh…” Ruby winced at the reddened strap imprint. “We can try wheeling it on my bike?”

“That’s probably a good idea.”

* * *

“Mmm, corn syrup,” Ruby moaned, jamming another tiny, crumbling chocolate-chip cookie into her mouth. _“Preservatives,_ oh my gods.”

“Mouth closed to chew, mouth _empty_ to speak,” Weiss chided her, wheeling the bike gingerly over another large crack. The handlebars had started in Ruby’s grip, but one too many incidents of either the bike or the cookie bag nearly hitting the ground as Ruby tried to eat had seen Weiss heaving a mighty sigh and taking over. “Ugh, when was the last time anyone resurfaced this road?”

“Iuwwo.” Ruby finally deigned to swallow her mouthful. “You sure you don’t want a cookie?”

“Oh, I’m sure.” She grunted in irritation, steering around a pothole. “You rode down this? How did you not go flying off the seat?”

“It’s not that bad. I’ve got really good shocks, like, Gem-tech good. Yang likes fixing up vehicles.”

“Bicycles count?”

“Pedal bikes can be cool! We had plans for a sweet set of rocket boosters, but Dad put his foot down.”

“Good call,” Weiss said dryly.

Zwei barked once, as if in agreement. He was trotting along beside her, dutifully matching pace. No one had looked twice at the rose-coloured corgi outside the airbus station. Were people already that used to him around here? Or just to Gem craziness in general? She wasn’t sure how the demographics stacked up in Patch, like, whether there were more Gems here percentage-wise than in the City of Vale or anywhere else. She was pretty sure she remembered that Gems tended to spread out rather than cluster together—so actually, four Gems on one small island (or three Gems and a half-human hybrid) was already a lot even if there weren’t any others.

And here she was, deliberately heading straight for the epicentre of all things weird.

Weiss wasn’t sure how Ruby had talked her assorted guardians into letting her have a sleepover on her last day of being grounded, but the argument she’d presented to Weiss had been simple: if Weiss were present right from the start on Ruby’s first day of freedom, they could make up more of the lost time from the previous ten days in one go. Weiss couldn’t fault her logic, so she’d packed her bag and told Klein she was leaving.

“Oh shoot, Klein,” Weiss said suddenly, stopping and leaning Ruby’s bike gingerly against herself as she rooted through her bag. “I promised I’d call him when I got here.”

“Here.” Ruby shoved the cookie bag into her hoodie pocket and grabbed the handlebars, holding the bike steady. “The chain’s greased, it’ll stain your dress.”

“Thank you,” Weiss said, relieved; she couldn’t let go fast enough. Evidently the cookies were gone, as Ruby resumed walking with the bike while Weiss talked to Klein.

“…Yes. I think we’re almost to Ruby’s house.” She glanced at Ruby, who nodded.

_“Very good. And, er…”_

“Klein?” It wasn’t like him to hesitate.

 _“Should your father contact you, and you find yourself compelled to…conceal your itinerary, as it were,”_ Klein said rather delicately, _“do please share any information that may help me corroborate your account.”_

A small smile worked its way onto Weiss’s face, gratitude warm and humbling in her chest. “You don’t have to do that for me.”

_“Nonsense. It’s only natural to prioritise my mistress’s needs.”_

“Still…”

 _“Oh, don’t you give me that, girl.”_ Weiss bit her lip and held in her laughter as Klein’s polished accent slipped. _“We’re only just shot of the man! No need to call him down on us so soon, is there?”_

“No. You’re right, we don’t. Thank you, Klein. Just…” Even though Ruby was the only one around to hear, Weiss lowered her voice. “Don’t do anything to get yourself in trouble, okay?”

 _“Let me worry about my standing with your father.”_ Perfect Butler Klein was back. _“Your only concerns for the next thirty hours are to have fun and be safe.”_

“Alright. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

_“Of course, Miss Schnee. Take care.”_

Snake-quick, Ruby leaned towards her. “Bye, Mr. Klein!” she yelled, causing Weiss to flinch away, wincing. She ended the call on Klein’s chuckling.

“Sorry,” Ruby whispered, smiling sheepishly as she drew away again. 

“How can someone so small produce so much noise?” Weiss asked the universe at large, rubbing at her ears.

“Hey! You’re only a couple inches taller than me!” Ruby stuck out her tongue. “I could be tall too if I wanted to walk around on stilt-shoes.”

 _“Heels._ And how thick are the soles on those boots?”

Ruby mumbled something indistinct, going pink. “Oh!” she said quickly, pointing. “That’s the street my dad lives on, by the way! Well, it’s not really a street. It’s more like a really long driveway that branches off into a couple of shorter ones along the way.”

“That’s what a street is, Ruby,” said Weiss, before she looked closer and realised that for all it was marked with a road sign, it was just a one-lane gravel track leading into the fringes of the woods. “Oh.”

“Yup. Dad lives right at the end, so if you ever need to find his house, just keep walking until you run out of gravel!”

Weiss glanced down at the very footwear Ruby had made fun of. “…Is _your_ driveway paved?”

Ruby was clearly trying to suppress a snicker, not far behind on Weiss’s train of thought. “Yeah. Dad used to keep his truck there before I was born. It’s closer to the ferry port.”

“Wouldn’t that mean he’d have to walk all the way to your house just to use his own car?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s not that far and I guess he spent more time with the Gems back then anyway. He still drives over before he goes out on hunts to tell us where he’s going and pick up extra gear, like containment capsules and stuff.”

“I thought Huntsmen were all freelancers. Why does he check in like that?”

“Safety! Like you calling Klein. You always tell someone when you go hunting alone so they’ll know something’s wrong if they don’t hear from you.” Ruby shrugged, looking slightly embarrassed. “And I made him promise he’d always tell me before he left.”

“Oh.” Weiss thought back to all the times she’d come to breakfast to see the head of the table empty, her father gone away on another business trip late at night or early in the morning. Of course, he wouldn’t want to disturb his children’s sleep. It made sense.

Ruby chattered on as they walked, pointing out things she thought were of interest and answering Weiss’s questions, until at last they came to a narrow turn-off that led into a high tunnel of old, thick-trunked maples and birches. She angled towards it, and Weiss followed, spotting a beaten-metal mailbox on a sturdy post right at the edge of the treeline. So this wasn’t a road in even name—just a driveway long enough that she couldn’t see the house it belonged to.

Weiss realised as they went on that they were no longer in the outskirts of the woods but had ventured into the forest itself, thick undergrowth lining the driveway to either side. Leaves rustled loudly as the wind picked up, spots of sun and shade dancing over the girls and the path beneath their feet, the bike’s wheels rolling smoothly over asphalt that had clearly seen far less travel than the main road.

It was only a minute or so before the trees began to thin again, revealing a clearing in which stood a pretty little house of wood and stone, with cross-hatched gables and ivy creeping towards the eaves. Even if she’d had a keen interest in architecture, Weiss would have been hard pressed to put a name to the style of the house. Something about the way it all fit together made her think it had been added to and at least partially rebuilt more than few times, though. It didn’t look like the sort of house one planned to build so much as the sort one ended up with in fits and starts of trial and error. It seemed sturdy, though, and well cared-for; someone here was clearly at least a little house-proud.

Or at least, Weiss thought, her eyes lingering on the riot of red, orange, and yellow roses climbing towards the eaves, someone _had_ been, and the routine had persisted. There wasn’t much of a garden besides the roses, hardy columbines, coral bells, and bleeding hearts all in bloom around the foundation and hemmed in by an assortment of small rough rocks. There wasn’t much of a lawn, either; the treeline was only a few yards out from the front door. Off to the right of the house, though, the trees stood in a fairly narrow band; she could see sky through them, and an expanse of uninterrupted grass.

“And this,” Ruby declared proudly, “is home!” She glanced nervously at Weiss.

“It’s…charming.”

She’d meant it, actually, but she’d hesitated too long; Ruby’s face fell. Weiss hastened to add, “I like the roses. Are they different kinds?”

Ruby brightened. “Nope! It’s some kind of special variety that blooms a bunch of different colours. I don’t know when Mom planted them, but they’re in all the old pictures.”

“Do you take care of them?”

She shook her head, eyes wide. “No. No one takes care of them. We appease them with libations of flat cola and coffee grounds and they allow us to live. Whoever draws the short straw has to prune them back from the windows once a year.”

“…Um?”

Ruby patted her arm gently. “Don’t think too hard about it. Just breathe in, accept it, and breathe out. You’ll feel better.”

Weiss eyed the roses warily. Heavy, fragrant blooms nodded agreeably to her as they passed by on the way to the garage.

“I just need to put my bike away,” Ruby explained. “Do you want me to get your bag?”

“No, I’ve got it.”

She waited outside, falling into step beside Ruby again once she emerged and headed up the walk to the front door.

“Not sure where everyone’ll be, but Yang’s stuck home until tomorrow, too, so at least she’ll be here. After you!” Ruby turned the doorknob and shoved, gesturing Weiss forward as the door swung easily inward. Zwei slipped around her legs and trotted in first. The walk was well shaded, so it didn’t take long for Weiss’s eyes to adjust once she was inside. She froze.

“Weiss?” Shutting the door, Ruby eased her way around her, silent as she, too, took in the sight of the living room.

“What in the gods’ names,” Weiss began flatly.

“Hey Qrow, hey Ozpin, what—what’cha doin’ there?” Ruby asked in a tone of false cheer.

“They are straight-up breaking things,” Yang’s voice issued from the couch, the Gem herself invisible from the doorway. “It’s actually pretty great to watch.”

“Not breaking,” Ozpin corrected her in a soft, distracted tone, not looking away from his task. “Dismantling.”

Well, that explained why the TV was on mute, some cookie-cutter procedural airing daytime reruns in silence. It did _not_ go a long way to explaining the mess of cogwheels, springs, crystals, screws, metal plates and more that were scattered across the floor in what was clearly an intentional array, though Weiss could discern no actual useful pattern. At the centre of it all sat Ozpin and Qrow, the former in an armchair frowning at some boxy piece of metal in hand that he was currently attacking with a screwdriver, the latter leaning against the side of that chair as he sat cross-legged on the floor, peering down at some sort of flat plate covered in tiny gears which he was prodding with a pair of long tweezers.

“I was only gone for half an hour,” Ruby said weakly.

“Oh, this is only like, twenty minutes worth of destruction,” Yang assured her, a half-gloved yellow hand appearing over the sofa arm and gesturing at the ordered chaos. “Took less than _half_ that for Oz to break Qrow into helping.” She snorted, her tone light and teasing as she added, “Weak!”

“To _persuade_ Qrow,” Ozpin insisted. “Please.”

“Oh, like you’d have held out longer. Hey, boy,” Qrow added in a gentler tone as Zwei came to sit beside him; he rubbed his free hand between Zwei’s ears with obvious fondness.

Yang finally poked her head into visibility, raising her eyebrows at Qrow. “Uh, remember that whole thing where I still have to do as I’m told for the next ten hours?”

Qrow blinked at her, processing that, then leaned his head back against the chair arm, looking up at Ozpin as best he could. “She’s right. This is Yang work. Why am I doing Yang work?”

“Whoa, hey, I was just pointing out I wouldn’t have to be talked into helping!”

“See, she just volunteered.”

“I never said that!”

“It was implied. C’mon, Oz, free labour, no mind games required.”

“Persuasion is not coercion,” Ozpin said patiently, still not looking up. “I made my case and asked you to help. I even said _please._ You had every opportunity to say no.”

“But you didn’t.” Yang grinned. “So I guess you’re just whipped…?”

Her smug, shark-like smile didn’t waver as Qrow chucked the long tweezers at her. She didn’t move to dodge them. Instead Ozpin flicked his screwdriver and batted them out of the air. They fell to the rug with a muffled clatter as he gave the gadget he’d been working on one last critical look before depositing it gently on a side table and turned his attention at last to Ruby and Weiss.

“Come now, we’ve been terribly rude,” he chided the other Gems, smiling pleasantly. “A prompt return, young Rose; thank you for keeping to the terms of our agreement. And a good afternoon to you, Miss Schnee. Welcome to Patch.”

“Good afternoon, Professor Ozpin,” Weiss replied, nodding respectfully. She’d previously concluded he was the sane one, though recent evidence was putting that conclusion to the test.

Ozpin chuckled. “Oh, just Ozpin will do. I’m afraid my academic title is long defunct.” His smile looked a little wistful now.

“Uh, we’re here too, y’know,” Yang said, laying her arms along the back of the couch. “Hi.”

“Hello, Yang,” Weiss sighed. She was unprepared for the way Yang perked up at that, beaming at her.

“I wish I wasn’t,” Qrow muttered. Weiss was pretty sure she caught Ozpin rolling his eyes.

“What even _is_ that?” Ruby asked, frowning as she leaned forward to look.

“Signal scanner. _Ancient._ Broken as hell,” Qrow said sourly, setting the gear-plate aside and gazing at the girls with dead, empty eyes. “But here we are messing with it, because apparently we’re fu—“

Ozpin cleared his throat.

“Because apparently we’re Bismuths now,” Qrow censored himself, scowling.

“Hush,” Ozpin scolded him gently. “You’re being classist. A Pearl of all Gems should know better.” Which set Qrow to grumbling again.

 _“Whipped,”_ Yang whispered loudly.

“Any Gem can do any _thing_ within their physical capabilities,” Ozpin continued, as if he hadn’t heard her. “As Yang will demonstrate by cooking dinner this evening.”

Yang’s smile vanished; Qrow’s face, by contrast, brightened considerably. “But it’s your turn!”

“Ten more hours,” Qrow reminded her, sing-song. She groaned, dropping her forehead onto her crossed arms.

“Uh, I’m gonna show Weiss where to put her stuff and then I thought maybe we could hang out outside, if that’s okay?” Ruby said quickly. “Not, y’know, wanting to push the grounding thing too much when you’re already letting us have a sleepover…”

Weiss watched her gaze waver between Qrow and Ozpin, only briefly glancing at Yang. Well, she had said the feminine Gem was more like a sister to her than anything. Which made Qrow and Ozpin, what, second and third fathers? Highly-eccentric uncles? Whatever they were, they had turned their heads in unsettlingly precise unison to make eye contact. Ozpin raised an eyebrow, and Qrow shrugged and shook his head a little as if confused, eliciting another smile from the perpetually-cheerful Garnet. It was Qrow who answered her question aloud.

“Knock yourself out, rosebud,” which had Ruby flushing red as her namesake and Yang cackling in response.

“Okay-let’s-go,” Ruby babbled frantically, grabbing Weiss by the arm and all but towing her towards the stairs.

“Have fun, _rosebud!”_ Yang called after them, still laughing.

“Oh, come on, her dad calls her that all the time! What, am I not allowed anymore?” Weiss heard Qrow protest quietly beneath Yang’s raised voice, followed by Ozpin’s even quieter reply:

“Something tells me this has more to do with the audience than the speaker…”

“They’re, uh,” Ruby chuckled nervously as they climbed out of earshot, “they can be a bit…much…by organic standards. That’s what my dad says, anyway; I’m used to it, so I don’t really notice. Sorry if they were. You know. A bit much.”

“It’s fine,” Weiss said, unsure if the apology was necessary or not. “I’m amazed they aren’t ‘a bit much’ for each other. They’re so…different.”

“They’re not human,” Ruby said, shrugging. “I guess a lot of Gems have pretty ‘out there’ personalities, but if you’re going to share your life with someone for thousands of years, you have to get used to that. Here’s me.”

She pointed through the open doorway at the end of the hall, leading Weiss into the small bedroom. It was surprisingly tidy, a few books scattered over the desk to the right of the door, some knickknacks on shelves above it, but the dresser drawers were neatly closed and the bed was made—apparently quite well, since the covers stayed more-or-less put when Ruby plopped herself down on top of them. Sunlight poured through an old-fashioned four-pane window between the bed and the desk; another window opposite that one would let in the morning light instead.

“Thousands of years?” Weiss echoed, letting her bag drop to the floor and sitting down gracefully in Ruby’s desk chair, leaning her left shoulder against its back; she swept her hat off her head and smoothed her hand over her hair, just to check nothing had pulled loose from her ponytail.

“Gems live a long time.”

“I know that! I just didn’t realise that they—that _your_ , uh…”

“My family,” Ruby supplied.

“Fine. I didn’t know they’d all been together that long. I mean, obviously I know they _met_ back during the Gem War, but I didn’t think…” Weiss trailed off, no longer sure exactly what it was she hadn’t thought. Mostly because she didn’t know what she _had_ thought. Ruby spoke about her Gem family so casually it was easy to downplay the fantastical aspects and think of them as if they were brightly-coloured humans, even though Weiss knew better.

“It was my mom who brought them all together.” Ruby rested a hand on the front of her hoodie, over the spot where Weiss had seen her Gemstone. “At first it was just her and Qrow and Ozpin. I guess they just kinda…travelled for awhile, before they met Yang. She’s the youngest.”

“I can tell,” Weiss interjected dryly.

“Yeah…” Ruby laughed self-consciously, rubbing the back of her neck. “She’s. She’s Yang. Anyway, that was when all four of them finally settled down here.”

“Except Ozpin,” Weiss said. “Because he was up at Beacon, right?” Most of her research into Gems had led back to either Rose Quartz—who, interestingly, was never once referred to as Summer—or to Ozpin, a figure who recurred less prominently but more frequently throughout most of history. It was Summer’s face in paintings and on statues, but Ozpin’s name on permits and deeds and trade agreements, and the by-lines of a small but significant body of monographs and academic articles on various Gem-related subjects. The difference between leadership and administration, Weiss supposed.

“Oh, that’s how you knew to call him ‘Professor’,” Ruby realised, nodding. “Yeah. After the war ended most of Mom’s Gems went to go find new homes, live their lives, and Mom wanted to do that too once she had Yang to sort of…take care of, I guess.” She looked thoughtful for a moment, then shook her head briskly, continuing.

“I don’t know whose idea it was, but that’s when Ozpin took over command of the Gems that stuck with the Rebellion and converted most of Beacon into classrooms and training grounds for any organics who wanted to learn how to fight monsters. He still _lived_ here, as far as I know, he just…wasn’t home very much.”

Weiss, ever the overachieving student, filed that information away, but her attention stumbled and seized on the start of Ruby’s explanation. “Wait, how young _was_ Yang?”

“Umm…younger than I am now, apparently.”

“But that would mean she was born—”

“Formed.”

“Fine, _formed,_ after the war. I thought the Rebellion didn’t have access to space travel!”

“They don’t. Yang was formed on Remnant. So was Mom.”

“But aren’t Gems aliens?”

Ruby shrugged, looking uncertain. “Mostly. I think Ozpin and Qrow are, and…Torchwick basically said he was.” She muttered the Zircon’s name, shoulders sloping down as if embarrassed. “I kinda get the impression Dr. Oobleck and Ozpin knew each other before the war, so I bet Oobleck’s from off-world too.”

“Okay, so…strike _alien_ from the list of things I thought I knew about Gems,” Weiss groused. “Next you’re going to tell me they aren’t sentient rock people—”

Ruby bit her lip.

“Oh, come _on.”_

The half-Gem looked faintly abashed, but mostly amused. “Sentient rock _or_ mineral people, actually. Anything with a crystalline structure. Sorry.”

Weiss sighed, a rather guttural sound of exasperation. “It’s fine. I suppose, as much as it grates, I have to accept that this is the sort of thing you’re going to know more about than I do.” She paused. “For now. So, sentient _inorganic crystalline structures—”_

“Well, except for Pearls.”

Weiss blinked at her in silence, mouth set in a line. “You just enjoy interrupting me, don’t you.”

“Little bit,” Ruby admitted, covering her smile.

Wordlessly, Weiss shook her head. “Okay, I’ll bite. Pearls. Hit me with it.”

“Uh.” All at once, Ruby looked uncertain. “I don’t actually know much about Pearls specifically. I mean, Qrow’s the only one I’ve met.”

“But?” Weiss prompted with a touch of impatience; Ruby’s voice had wobbled strangely as she’d finished speaking, and her gaze had darted off to one of the windows, as if there were something fascinating just outside.

“I don’t know how Gems form, okay? I’m scared to ask because the last time I asked where new sentient beings came from I ended up getting scarred for life.” Ruby shuddered, and Weiss found herself cringing in sympathy, remembering Winter’s blunt, clinical version of the Talk. “So I don’t know if Pearls form differently and that’s why they’re not like other Gems. But I get the feeling other Gems, like, the _other_ other Gems that Mom and everyone split away from, Homeworld Gems, don’t treat Pearls super well.”

“As in…”

Ruby looked even more uncomfortable as she went on. “A few days ago, Qrow took me and Yang on this mission. And he had to activate this Gem AI that I…don’t think knows the war is over or that Qrow was one of the rebels. She talked about him having a _master.”_

Weiss winced. “Oh…”

“Right?!” Ruby smacked her hands hard against the bed, once again looking at Weiss directly. “I knew there was something about Pearls that was supposed to make them different—Yang said something about them having ‘attachment issues’ or something once and I guess Qrow doesn’t do so great if he’s on his own for too long—but I didn’t know it was some messed-up slave-race thing!”

“Did you talk to him about it?”

“Well…I kind of didn’t really process what Jinn—that’s the AI’s name, Jinn—it didn’t hit me why she said that to Qrow until later because there was a lot of running for our lives after that?” Ruby smiled awkwardly, giving a limp thumbs-up. “We survived, though! Three cheers for the Rose Rebellion…?”

“My sister’s a fighter pilot and I’m pretty sure you’re still in danger more often than she is,” Weiss said, deadpan; after a while, there wasn’t much to say when your best friend had a new story of death-defying adventure every time you talked to them.

“Life is danger! Surviving is thriving!” Ruby cried, then cleared her throat. “But no, I fell asleep before he got back from Beacon and he’d already left again before I woke up the next morning. Actually, he only got back today.”

Weiss frowned. “Is that normal? I thought you said it wasn’t good for him to be alone.”

“Yeah, but if he _wants_ to go out alone, that’s his call to make. It’s not like he snaps and goes crazy or anything, he just gets kinda down.” Ruby shrugged. “He gets restless sometimes and then he goes and does Important Qrow Things and then he comes back and gets used to being with people again and then he’s fine. Yang and Ozpin didn’t seem worried, and he’s home now and acting pretty normal, so.”

Home and firmly anchored there by a task that required him to sit still, focus, and rely on the company of others for diversion. _Something tells me that’s not a coincidence._

“But!” Ruby held up a finger. “We’re getting off track. We need to have a planning session for what we’re going to do tomorrow. Out back?”

“Actually,” Weiss admitted, “I could use something to drink after that walk.”

“Lemonade on the patio!” Ruby suggested.

“There’s a patio?”

* * *

A very nice patio, as it happened, situated between the back door and the rest of the picturesque back yard. There wasn’t a fence, just an irregular boundary of trees surrounding a much larger clearing than that which comprised the front lawn. There was a vegetable patch to one side of the patio, but someone had grown tall sunflowers with plate-sized blooms along the opposite side. Ruby caught Weiss looking over her shoulder at them—more specifically, at Zwei snuffling around them.

“Dad put all the plants in besides Mom’s roses after they’d been dating for awhile. Most of ‘em are perennials so they come back on their own, but Yang liked the sunflowers so much she plants new ones every year. We probably wouldn’t have gardens at all except for Dad. The ones at his house are even nicer.” Ruby made a face. “And bigger. So much _weeding…”_

Weiss took another sip of lemonade, swiping away the ring of condensation gathering on the glass table. “I’m guessing that’s why there aren’t more flowers back here?”

“Well, that and,” Ruby gestured a short distance away, towards the centre of the large lawn and the round stone pavilion which stood there. Its surface was polished, but it seemed to absorb as much light as it reflected, giving it a strange, pearlescent glow under the afternoon sun.

“I was going to ask about that. It’s a warp pad, right?” Weiss leaned across the table, squinting at it. She regretted leaving her hat inside; she hadn’t realised how much easier it had been to see with it on, even if the brim clipped her peripheral vision a little.

“Yup. Apparently there’s a safety thing about leaving a certain amount of room around them, I don’t know.”

“Makes sense. You wouldn’t want to crowd a helipad, either.”

“Oh! I know!”

Weiss turned back to Ruby, who wore the eager, delighted expression of one who’s just been inspired. “Should I ask?”

“We should use the warp tomorrow! Think about it—we could go anywhere!”

“…Anywhere, huh.” Weiss considered that, excitement rising despite herself. With the funds at her disposal, she could technically already go ‘anywhere’—as long as she asked her father’s permission and was willing to endure the travel time. But a warp?

That was a whole new set of possibilities.

“I mean, we’d have to take it to Beacon first…”

“I’ve never been to Beacon,” Weiss said quickly. No organic had been to Beacon in two hundred years—except Ruby and maybe, Weiss supposed, Taiyang. Only Gems could operate the warps, and warping was the only way in.

Ruby beamed. “Then I could show you around campus to start with! Ooh, I wish we could go now.” She shifted anxiously in her seat, fidgeting. “The staying home thing wasn’t too bad at first, and the extra work isn’t really that big a deal, but I— _whoa!”_

“Zwei!” Weiss called out, alarmed; the corgi had suddenly shot off the patio, racing past Ruby, darting nimbly across the vegetable patch and dashing into the trees. Weiss got up immediately and took off after him, Ruby right beside her.

“That was crazy graceful!” Ruby exclaimed. “He ninja’d right through the tomatoes, did you see that!?”

“He’s so fast!”

“Zwei!” Ruby yelled. “Wait up! He’s never done this before. No, wait!”

She grabbed Weiss’s arm, tugging her off to the left as she was about to forge on between a pair of birches. The world blurred briefly, and when Ruby let go they were running down a grassy path between two distinct lines of trees. She could glimpse flashes of Ruby’s house off to her right.

“It cuts in further up the yard!” Ruby explained, panting a little now, her jagged breaths awkwardly syncopated against the steady rhythm of their shoes against the ground. Well, mostly steady.

 _I knew I should have worn the wedges!_ Weiss cursed herself, yanking her heel free of the dirt with savage force. “Go on ahead! I’ll catch up!”

“No; I think I know where—where he was going! He’s heading for a dead end!”

Weiss would have asked what she meant, but just then they cleared the trees and she saw for herself. Grass and wildflowers swept smoothly up a series of gentle inclines before cutting off in an artificial horizon. Zwei sat right on that line, his back to them, and Weiss’s steps slowed. In the distance on her left was another rise which mantled higher than this little hill; to her right, she could now see a little way into Ruby’s front yard through the trees.

Ruby led the way up the slope, and as they climbed Weiss realised they weren’t on a hill at all; this was a cliff, jagged and sheer, and so was the rise on the left. They were both different promontories jutting out from a broad, elevated curve that cradled the valley far below, an unbroken stretch of deep forest that vanished into fog tinted golden by the sun.

“He’s _got_ to have some connection to Mom,” Ruby said quietly as they came to a stop just behind Zwei, looking out over the valley. “This was her favourite spot. It’s why she picked this place to settle down.”

 _Didn’t the photo album already give that one away?_ “It’s beautiful,” Weiss murmured, sensing now wasn’t the time to split hairs. Ruby nodded, touching the front of her hoodie again.

“I come out here and talk to her sometimes.” She laughed—nervously, but there was a hollowness to it which nervousness couldn’t explain. “Is that weird?”

“Mother used to take Winter and me to visit our grandfather’s grave,” Weiss said, unsure of her footing in a different way now. “But sometimes I used to find her in his old study. Looking through his books, things like that.”

Or just sitting, after that terrible birthday Weiss tried not to think about; sitting, and crying, or worse just listlessly staring, a wine glass tipping and pitching in her grip as the stem wobbled between her clumsy fingers. She shook the memories away. “I think it’s where she feels closest to him.”

“Yeah…that’s kind of it. But she’s right here, too.” Ruby tapped her chest, and Weiss thought she had tried to laugh again. It didn’t much sound like it. “Close to my heart. This Gem held everything she was.”

Her voice went very quiet.

“If you think about it… _I’m_ my mom’s grave.”

Without thinking, Weiss caught Ruby’s hand, pulling it away. “Hey! That’s just—that’s the part of you your mother gave you, like your father’s genes. It’s still you! It’s like—like saying _we’re_ all carrying pieces of Grandfather around just because we inherited his hair!”

She flicked her ponytail for emphasis, and a weak giggle worked its way out of Ruby. Oh, that probably had looked pretty ridiculous, hadn’t it?

_I’m still holding her hand!_

Weiss dropped it immediately, going red with mortification. “A-anyway!” She looked away, tossing her hair. “It’s _your_ Gemstone. Your weapon’s different, right? You don’t have her memories, or her history, or any of that. It’s your Gemstone, and _you_ aren’t _her.”_

“Thanks, Weiss,” Ruby said softly; Weiss dared to look back at her and found the girl was tentatively smiling. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get so… _bleh._ I wanted to bring you here sometime, I just wasn’t planning on it being _right now_ and…it’s been kind of a weird month.”

“You don’t say,” Weiss said dryly.

The smile broadened into a more cheerful, familiar expression. “Aw, c’mon, you know you love us.”

“There is exactly one being on this property I’m willing to confess love to.” Weiss crouched, patting her knees. “Zwei! Come here, Zwei!”

Ruby looked like she wanted to object, but closed her mouth, nodding slowly. “Yeah, okay, I can’t really argue that.”

Hearing his name, Zwei’s ears had perked up and he was watching them over his shoulder, tongue lolling out.

“Come on. You wanna go back to the patio? Patio?” Weiss repeated.

“C’mon, Zwei,” Ruby cajoled. “Don’t make me carry you! Let’s go home.”

Zwei’s ears twitched again. He barked once, the sharp sound seeming to echo and _stretch,_ hanging tremulously in the air.

Ruby and Weiss looked at each other for the split-second of confusion they were afforded before the ground disappeared from beneath them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY, so this? This was supposed to be like. Half of Chapter 7. And then Ruby and Weiss figuring out what had happened and getting home would have been the second half. Except the second "half" just keeps going and is looking like it's gonna end up being AT LEAST half again as long as what's above, and the whole thing was getting ridiculously bloated. Not just long, mind you. It simply didn't flow well after a certain point. Fortunately, this realisation hit in the midst of trying and failing to bring the falling action to a close, so the thing that is now Chapter 8 is actually almost finished. Emphasis on "almost", not "finished"; expect it soon, but not, like, tomorrow-soon.
> 
> So, you know, anyone who feels like commenting, kudos...ing, and so forth: great, I love feedback! And if you feel there's not enough to comment on, that's totally understandable. This was just the ideal point to split the chapters. Hopefully I'll see you all again at Chapter 8! Or, uh. I guess I'll see the hit counter go up again at Chapter 8? ...Idiom is weird and I should stop talking now. Thanks for reading!


	8. Wonderland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So a magical and/or alien dog barks and creates a portal. Ruby and Weiss fall through. Weiss is pretty sure this isn’t part of a standard sleepover. But hey, escape-the-weird-pocket-dimension beats truth-or-dare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And lo, the second part arriveth. Nothing else really to say that wasn’t said all of three days ago, so I invite you to read on and enjoy Chapter 8, AKA “Chapter 7 but the plot actually resolves”!

Everything was dark as pitch until a spark of red lit in the air. It flickered, like a lighter failing to strike. Then it exploded with a clap of thunder, an outer ring of light pushing out and bounding a field of churning energy which ejected two screaming girls at speed. Weiss frantically reached out to Ruby, who grabbed her hand in one of her own, directing the other palm-down towards the floor. A bubble began to form rapidly around them, but not as quickly as Weiss knew it could—instead, light seemed to be gathering at its base.

It struck the floor, then Weiss and Ruby struck it, bouncing gently.

“You made a cushion,” Weiss realised, freeing her hand and pressing her palms against the bottom of the bowl of light.

“Uh-huh! I’ve been practicing. After the bird-monster thing Ozpin said I should work on my,” her face screwed up in confusion, hooking her fingers into air-quotes, “‘landing strategy’? So I tried to come up with something good for long falls. Never tried it on anything higher than a trampoline jump before now, though…”

“Well, I think we can call this a success,” Weiss said rather dubiously, looking around. There wasn’t much she could make out in the soft glow from Ruby’s half-bubble—they were surrounded by stone of some kind, and the ceiling was shrouded in darkness. “Looks like we fell pretty far…and whatever we fell _through_ is gone.” She sighed. “Because of course it is.”

“Weiss? This is gonna sound crazy, but, did Zwei…open a portal and drop us into a creepy basement somewhere?”

Basement? That would explain why there were no windows, but… “It could be a cave of some kind, too,” Weiss reasoned. “If we’re deep enough, there wouldn’t be any moving air, right?”

“Nah. I mean, yeah, but it’s not a cave.” Ruby’s voice sounded a little muffled, and Weiss looked over her shoulder to see the other girl had her cheek smushed against the base of the bowl, peering directly down through it. “The floor’s way too smooth and shiny.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Weiss stood gingerly, wobbling a little on the light-cushion. “That still leaves us with your dog having _yet another_ leg up on the laws of physics…”

Ruby snickered, rocking back onto her knees. The bowl wobbled like jello.

“Ruby,” Weiss warned, narrowing her eyes.

“It’s funny ’cuz he’s a boy dog.”

“Ugh!” Weiss smacked a palm over her face. “You’re such a _child_ sometimes. Focus! We need to find a way out of here and back to Patch.”

“You don’t think we’re on Patch anymore?”

“You’re the one who lives there.” Weiss gestured around the space. “Does this look like Patch to you? Give me your scroll. I left mine on the table.”

Ruby pulled her scroll out and tossed it over; Weiss snatched it out of the air, preparing to berate the other girl for carelessness, but as she felt the wobble under her feet caused by her shifting weight, the nascent lecture fizzled out. _Guess there’s really no reason to worry about dropping it…_

There was no signal, of course, but all she really wanted was to turn on the flashlight, the intensity of the Hard Light Dust ratcheting up to a bright white point that illuminated a small puddle of light around her. Then she yelped as the half-bubble popped and vanished, abruptly dropping her about a foot to the floor. She stumbled forward as her shoes hit the ground and lost her balance, her knees striking the stone painfully. “Ow…!”

 _“Oh_ my gosh Weiss, are you okay? I’m so sorry,” Ruby babbled, rushing over to her and crouching down. “I should have warned you. I forgot about centre of gravity. Is anything hurt?”

 _“Everything_ hurts,” Weiss said through gritted teeth, accepting Ruby’s hand and letting herself be helped upright. Seeing the mortified look on the hybrid’s face, Weiss relented. “Nothing’s broken or anything. Just be more careful, okay? Think it through next time.”

She raised Ruby’s scroll high, looking around. “…Okay, I still can’t see the walls, either. How big _is_ this place?”

Ruby took a deep breath and cupped her hands around her mouth. _“Hello!?”_

The sound pushed flat through the air, neither resounding nor rebounding but dissipating into silence.

“No echo,” Ruby observed, exchanging troubled looks with Weiss. “So…it’s either a really small room that we just can’t see for some reason…”

“…Or it’s so big that the walls and ceiling are too far away for the sound to carry. So are we crossing our fingers for ‘dark void’ or ‘infinite tomb’?”

“I don’t like either of those options,” Ruby said, small-voiced. “I wish it were even a little brighter in here. I just wanna be able to see—”

And then it was, and they could, silent and instant as a light-switch being flipped.

“—where…we…are?”

Weiss’s lips parted, looking around in disbelief and awe; her thumb moved automatically, switching off the now-superfluous flashlight. The ceiling was a _sky,_ peachy-pink like a sunrise but neither sun nor moon were visible, and the stars were only faint pinpricks that formed no constellations she could name _._ And the walls, well, no wonder they hadn’t been able to see them. There weren’t any. Just red roses on creeping vines covering the ground all the way to the horizon.

Ruby walked to the edge of the large, round stone plinth on which they stood, now revealed to be a warm pink marble. She crouched and ran her fingers over the petals of one of the roses. Then, hesitantly, she touched her fingertip to a thorn. She hissed and drew her hand back sharply.

“Ruby?”

“They’re real,” she said, standing and extending her hand towards Weiss; a round drop of blood beaded on her fingertip, its tense surface quivering. “Or they feel real. But they don’t smell like anything.”

“You’re right.” Weiss hadn’t noticed at first, but no matter how many deep breaths she drew in, there was nothing, neither perfume nor the raw, green smell of healthy vegetation. Not even the inevitable scent of decay. “I can’t smell anything at all. Shouldn’t there be, I don’t know, dirt or something?”

“I couldn’t see what the roses were growing in. There’s too many briars in the way, and they’re all thorny. Oh, wait!”

Ruby went back over to the edge of the platform, digging around in her pocket. She retrieved the cookie bag with a triumphant “Aha!” and turned it inside-out over her hand, wiggling her hidden fingers at Weiss with a creaking, rustling noise.

“Behold!”

“My knight in shining armour,” Weiss droned. “What exactly do you think you’re going to do with that?”

Ruby grinned and thrust her hand into the roses, pawing through them and staring intently.

“Okay,” she said after a moment, “haven’t struck dirt yet, but it looks like the stone keeps going. Maybe there’s a path here!”

“Uh, Ruby?” Weiss stared as the roses parted in a line from the spot where Ruby was working, drawing away from a cobblestone path of irregular marble slabs that led out from the platform on which they stood.

“What?”

Weiss pointed wordlessly. She heard Ruby gasp when she turned to look.

“We didn’t just…not see that, right?” she asked.

“It _definitely_ wasn’t there before,” Weiss insisted. Ruby went to pull her hand out of the roses, and Weiss heard a yelp as she succeeded.

“Dang it! The bag got stuck on the thorns. I can’t get it out.” She shook her hand ruefully, rubbing at the new scratches on her wrist.

“Leave it. Littering’s the least of our problems right now.”

Ruby gave a few more tugs to the bag, but it was caught fast. She looked quite disgruntled when she finally gave up and stood, something between a pout and a scowl on her face as Weiss came to stand beside her, eyeing the path warily.

“The roses just _moved,”_ Weiss murmured, pressing a hand to her temple and rubbing slowly. “That should _not_ be possible. …What now?” she asked in a sigh as Ruby fidgeted.

“Mom’s roses at home used to try to creep through the windows whenever I was near the front of the house,” Ruby confessed in a rush, going pink. “And the door. And the chimney.”

 _Smack_ went Weiss’s face into her hands.

“They don’t do it anymore,” Ruby hastened to add. “We talked it out.”

“Why?” Weiss asked, muffled.

“Because it was too early in the season to prune—oh, you meant the roses. Uh, so plants get kinda weird around certain kinds of Gems sometimes? They aren’t _intelligent,_ but they’re _smart,_ if that makes any sense. We think they were looking for Mom and, y’know.” Ruby laughed awkwardly. “Next best thing.”

Weiss lowered her hands, narrowing her eyes consideringly at the roses. Ruby voiced her thoughts a beat later.

“If Zwei sent us here, and he’s connected to Mom, and these roses are acting like _Mom’s_ roses, do you think…?”

“Maybe they _are_ your mom’s roses. Or something that looks like roses, anyway,” Weiss added. The ones back on Patch had certainly _seemed_ like normal plants. These roses had been strange even before they’d started moving on their own. “Does that mean we’re safe here?”

“I don’t know,” Ruby admitted, looking down. “Gem places aren’t always friendly to organics.”

“Oh. Great.”

Perturbed, they observed the path in silence. Weiss was half-expecting it to vanish as suddenly as it had appeared, or for the plinth on which they stood to start dissolving into nothing to force them forward. But as the seconds ticked by, nothing happened, until at last Ruby spoke up again.

“I think we should follow it.”

“Follow the mysteriously-appearing path through the supernatural rose garden your magical dog teleported us into.” Weiss crossed her arms. “Don’t you think it’s just a little too convenient? Something’s trying to lead us somewhere. What if it’s a trap?”

“We’re already trapped,” Ruby pointed out, looking unusually serious. “We don’t know where we are, or how far home is, and we can’t call anyone or use the sky to navigate. I don’t even think that’s the real sky! The colour’s too solid to just be a time-of-day thing. Our only landmarks are this…patio thing and that path. So I say we go the only way we can. What do we have to lose?”

Weiss scanned the area, searching for something, _anything_ else to go on. But it was just them, the path, and the sea of sharp-thorned, scentless roses.

“Okay,” she said reluctantly. “Oh! Here.” She handed Ruby’s scroll back, watching as the other girl tucked it away in her hoodie’s kangaroo pocket.

“If it makes you feel better,” Ruby offered as they set off down the path, “I’m technically always armed now. So even if we get in trouble, I can protect us.”

Weiss rubbed her arms uncomfortably, not cold but feeling something similar. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know! But if there’s monsters or anything, I can fight them.” She gave Weiss a bright, encouraging smile. “We’ll be okay. I promise.”

“I’m still older than you,” Weiss grumbled, flushing. “And it’s not like I don’t know how to throw a punch, at least.”

“So we’ll be extra okay! Ruby Rose Quartz and Weiss Schnee: Junior Huntresses!” She passed a hand through the air as if envisioning a movie’s title card, smirking at Weiss.

Weiss sighed. “Don’t patronise me.”

Weiss’s heels clicked sharply against the stone, Ruby’s rubber soles making a quieter, muffled slapping sound as she walked.

“You said it yourself,” Ruby began tentatively. “There’s some things I know more about. Like weird Gem stuff. And fighting.”

“I know.” Weiss bit the inside of her cheek. “I just don’t like being unprepared.”

“Or relying on people,” Ruby guessed, and then winced when she saw Weiss’s face. “That’s a _don’t say it out loud_ thing, got it.”

“It’s not a ‘thing’,” Weiss said sharply, crossing her arms tighter against the churning in her stomach.

“Okay. Sorry.”

They walked a few steps in silence. Then, abruptly, Weiss asked “How far do you think this path goes?”

“I don’t know—it’s kind of hard to see. …No,” Ruby corrected herself, shaking her head, “I can _see,_ but I can’t _look._ I can’t focus on anything too far in front of us for some reason.”

“Yeah.” Weiss frowned as that clicked into place; she knew exactly what Ruby meant, the way her eyes just didn’t seem to be telling her brain the whole story. “You’re right. I…guess we just have to keep walking, then.” _However long that takes._ And then came the thought she’d been trying to suppress for a while now: _What if we never get out?_

Ruby clearly shared her unease, though she seemed to be trying to hide it. “W-well, maybe we’re almost there. We can’t see the end, but we can’t really see the path either, right? Maybe this is the home stretch, and we’re about to—”

“—end up right back where we started!” Weiss groaned, as they found themselves stepping off the path and onto a round plaque of marble. “You’ve _got_ to be _kidding_ me!”

“No, wait! Look, if this is the same path and the same platform, the cookie bag should be right there. But I don’t see it anywhere.”

Sure enough, there wasn’t the slightest glint of foil, or a flash of colour that wasn’t blood red, deep green, or soft pink. And as Weiss looked closer, she realised the plinth was different as well.

“There’s something carved in the surface here.”

“Huh?” Ruby frowned, stepping towards the centre. Weiss followed her, trying to discern the pattern, but Ruby beat her to it. _“Oh._ We were right!”

“About what?”

“This place is connected to Mom. It’s hard to see from ground-level, but…” She pointed, and Weiss followed her finger as it traced the lines. “Those crinkly lines all folded in on each other, those should make a rose shape from overhead. It’s Mom’s emblem. Well, Rose Quartz’s emblem, anyway; I’m going to use it, too, when I become a Huntress. And that’s a gear, inside _another_ gear—Ozpin’s emblem—and the outer gear fits offset inside the negative space of a third gear in the broad part of a wing-shape, and that’s Qrow’s. See?”

Weiss tried to get the image to resolve in her mind’s eye, but it was hard to picture. She shook her head. “Whose is that? Down at the bottom, I guess, if the wing’s supposed to curve up.”

“There isn’t anything at…” Ruby blinked, looking where Weiss was pointing. “That’s not part of the symbol.”

“It’s carved the same way. It really looks like it’s supposed to be there.”

“But it shouldn’t be,” Ruby insisted. “Everywhere I’ve seen this symbol, it’s been exactly the same: Mom, Ozpin, and Qrow’s emblems made to fit together _._ Why would it be different here?”

Weiss walked away from Ruby, tilting her head as she examined the odd shape. “What’s the symbol supposed to represent? Family?”

“The Rose Rebellion. Its leader and her two closest advisors…Mom and her best friends.”

“The history books don’t say much about the Rebellion,” Weiss said, kneeling down gingerly by the fourth emblem. “Just that Rose Quartz and her Gems won the war. Are you _sure_ it was only the three of them at the top? Or were they just the ones who survived?”

Once again, Weiss saw Ruby press her hand to the spot over her Gemstone, looking pensive.

“Can you tell what it is?” she asked, coming to join Weiss.

“Peaks, different shapes, going up to a point and back down again. See, they’re attached to this curve here.”

“No, it’s an oval. Look.” Ruby pointed out the lower curve, and the answer struck Weiss all at once.

“It’s a crown.”

Ruby took a few steps back, squinting. “I think you’re right. Why would a crown be _below_ everything else?”

“Well, Qrow’s wing makes the top of the shape asymmetrical. There’s nowhere for the crown to sit. This way, the whole symbol is sort of inside the crown. You see this kind of thing in medieval heraldry sometimes,” Weiss explained, running her hand over the shape. She drew it back hastily, gasping, when the crown glowed white in response. The light dimmed swiftly once she was no longer touching the symbol.

“Whoa,” Ruby breathed, kneeling beside her. She did what Weiss had done, but she kept her hand on the shape, trailing her fingers through the light. As she did so, Weiss noticed something.

“Hang on. Try moving your hand as far as possible without lifting it.”

Ruby looked puzzled, but complied, and Weiss watched in fascination as the edge of the glowing shape drew away from the lines etched in the stone. The carved crown was exactly where it had always been, but a second crown of light was following Ruby’s hand, like she’d clicked and dragged it with a computer cursor. Ruby lifted her hand, and once again the glow faded. When she touched the stone again, the glow reappeared within the bounds of the crown’s carving.

“Do you think it works on the other parts?” Ruby wondered aloud, looking at Weiss.

As one, they got to their feet, going around either side of the crown and moving to bracket the heart of the crest. Ruby stepped in, but neither Qrow’s wing nor Ozpin’s gears reacted. When she reached the centre, she knelt down—and the rose lit up white.

“Physical contact,” Weiss said immediately. “It’s not about pressure—we have to be in direct contact with the stone.”

“Like a touchscreen!” Ruby scooted off the rose and waited for the light to die out, pressing her palms against the carving. “It moves like the crown does,” she reported. Rather unnecessarily, since Weiss could see for herself. “Oh! That’s weird.”

The glowing rose struck the inner boundary of the first gear and stopped. No matter how Ruby hauled on it, it wouldn’t go past that line.

“So we can move parts of the symbol, but we can’t take them out of alignment with each other,” Weiss mused. “But what can we do with…”

Her eyes landed on the gears. So did Ruby’s.

“Clockwork,” they said in unison.

“It’s got to be the outer gear,” Ruby decided, nodding.

“Right. We should be able to get it to run along the inside of the ring, as long as we keep the teeth together.” Weiss paused. “You know there’s no reason to think this’ll actually do anything useful, right?”

“Unless you use video game logic.” Ruby spread her arms in a shrug as Weiss raised an eyebrow at her. “What? This place obviously doesn’t work like the real world. Why _wouldn’t_ we need to solve a weird puzzle on the floor to progress?”

“So you really think we’re in some kind of alternate dimension? We can’t just,” Weiss gestured at the roses, “pick a direction and start running?”

“Through the super-sharp thorns that keep going as far as we can see?”

Weiss looked down at her exposed, sandal-clad feet.

“Can’t you do the… _whoosh_ thing and go over them?” she suggested, wrinkling her nose at how vague that sounded.

Ruby blinked, then blushed. “I didn’t think about that,” she admitted.

“Well?” Weiss prompted impatiently.

Ruby hopped up and looked around for a moment, settling on a point in the distance. Her eyes narrowed and she sprang forward, her body shimmering and vanishing into a drift of red petals that streaked off the plinth towards the horizon. A few yards out, Weiss saw the blur pull a sharp U-turn, speeding back towards her. Hardly had Ruby reached the platform than she rematerialised, falling onto her hands and knees and gasping.

“Ruby!”

She fell onto her side as Weiss rushed towards her. Cold terror clenched at Weiss’s chest as she dropped to her knees beside Ruby, but the other girl was still breathing; deep, noisy breaths that shook her whole body.

“Ruby, are you okay? What’s wrong? What do I need to do?” Weiss’s hands hovered uncertainly over Ruby’s form. The girl shook her head weakly.

“S’okay,” she wheezed. “Not hurt.”

Weiss rocked back on her heels, willing her heart to slow, trying to get her own breathing under control. “What happened?” she demanded, swallowing back her fear and the stomach-flipping sensation of absolute _relief_.

“No air.” Gradually, Ruby’s breathing evened out; she heaved a deep sigh, the bellows-like sound of her straining lungs quieting into normal respiration. “There’s no air off the path,” she elaborated. “I didn’t notice until I was almost too far out to make it back.” She grimaced. _“Definitely_ not normal roses…”

Weiss brushed away the sweat that had gathered on her forehead, swiping irritably at the moisture beading at the corners of her eyes. Some sweat must have dripped in, irritating them. “Well, that’s just _great.”_ If Ruby couldn’t make it that far on her own, she’d never be able to carry Weiss as well—which, as embarrassing as it was, had clearly been the only way they’d both make it out of here.

“So I guess that’s another point in the— _oof_ —the ‘weird alternate dimension’ column,” Ruby mused, scooting awkwardly until she was sitting up. “I mean, maybe the sky could be behind a force-field…but the stars are still wrong, and that doesn’t really explain why there’s air over the stones and nowhere else.”

“And now we can’t know for sure how much air there even _is,”_ Weiss said grimly.

Ruby shuddered. “You know, suffocating was never at the top of the list of ways I wanted to die, but it’s even lower now. So maybe we could just pump the brakes on that train of thought.”

Part of Weiss wanted to ask if Ruby had an actual, physical list, but the rest of her had grown a little wiser in the time since they’d met.

“Okay,” she sighed, getting up and holding a hand out to Ruby, who accepted her help standing. “I guess we’re solving a puzzle.”

They knelt between the lines of Qrow’s wing emblem, right beside the outer edge of the larger gear. “Ready?” Ruby asked.

“Ready.” They each placed their hands on the gear, which began to glow. “Three…two…one…go!”

They hauled on it as hard as it can, and the gear ran along several teeth before their hands left it.

“It’s working!” Ruby exclaimed as it kept going.

But before it had even gone a quarter of the way around, the light faded, and Weiss’s heart sank.

“Or not.” She blew air between her lips, crossing her arms. “Okay. Maybe if you try waiting further along the track?”

“So I can catch it before it fades and set it going again!” Ruby brightened. “Let’s try it!”

They did, and Weiss felt a flare of triumph as Ruby’s hands slammed down on the glowing shape just as it started to dim, sending it an additional quarter-turn. She realised suddenly the flaw in their plan.

“Ruby!” she called, pointing at the gear as it started fading again.

“Got it!” Ruby burst into petals, regaining her form almost on top of the gear and shoving it again, breathing new life into it. Weiss yanked her sandals off one foot at a time and started running, the straps hooked over the fingers of one hand.

“Ha!” she shouted triumphantly as she slapped a hand down on the dimming gear, flinging it onward towards Ruby, who had cut across to the point where Weiss had been.

They dashed breathlessly around the shape, catching the gear and sending it spinning down its track, never letting the light go out. By the third revolution, Weiss’s enthusiasm had begun to flag; by the fifth, it was thoroughly gone. She let out a short scream of frustration as she slammed her bare foot down on the gear after revolution number eight, stopping it dead. Ruby didn’t object, stumbling to a halt and doubling over with her hands on her knees, panting.

 _“What are we doing wrong!?”_ Weiss shrieked up at the sky. Her chest heaved with exertion and the hot, crushing anger pulsing through her pounding heart, her sore feet, her clenched fists. “Is it not going _fast enough?_ Is it the _dimming?”_

“Oh…oh my _gods.”_

Ruby, still bent over, was staring towards the centre of the symbol, wearing an expression of mingled disbelief and disgust.

“We’re _idiots,”_ she groaned.

“Speak for yourself,” Weiss snapped, turning to look. The glowing shape of a second, smaller gear overlapped the carving of the rose emblem. “What…?”

“It’s all one shape,” Ruby said, straightening up. “Ozpin’s emblem: one gear centred _perfectly_ inside another. If one gear moves alone, it’s not the same shape anymore. So the inner gear moves when we move the outer gear.”

“Which means the outer gear should move with the inner gear. And since it’s smaller, it’ll be easier to start it moving and keep it moving.” Weiss squeezed her eyes shut. “Faster, and without the dimming problem.”

Ruby surveyed the symbol critically for a moment, then walked forward, sitting down inside the carved inner gear. “Okay…Weiss? Could you come sit back-to-back with me? Or maybe a little further so we can both reach, but face the other way, okay? And put your sandals back on.”

They ended up sitting with most of the rose carving between them, carefully positioned so that they weren’t in direct contact with any part of the stone plinth.

“It’s like one of those spinny-cup rides, but backwards!” Ruby explained. “When you can reach the gear, spin it clockwise, and I’ll push it when I can reach it. Make sure you don’t press it hard enough to slow it down.”

“Are you sure it needs to go clockwise?”

“No, but it makes sense, right? Clockwork, clockwise. Anyway, you never thought of making it go the other way, either!”

Weiss flushed in embarrassment, grateful that Ruby couldn’t see her face. “W-well, of course not! You just said it yourself. It wouldn’t make sense to turn it counter-clockwise!”

“Mmhm.” She could _hear_ Ruby smirking, and her face grew hotter. “Okay, I’m going to start it. Here we go!”

Weiss heard Ruby’s palms swipe over the stone. A few seconds later, she saw the glowing gear moving towards her and brushed her own hands over it lightly. It slowed only slightly under her touch. She could see the outer gear chugging along as well, moving in a smooth arc that mimicked the motion of the inner gear, carried further by a single push than they’d been able to manage before.

_This might actually work!_

Around and around the gear went, picking up speed in a way the outer gear hadn’t. Soon Weiss was struggling to catch it before momentum carried it right past, moving her whole upper body along a semicircle in perfect counterpoint to Ruby. The light from the gears grew brighter, a strange wind picking up as if the flat shapes had mass, building into a whirlwind. The glow spread between the gears, meeting in the middle with a brilliant flare and Weiss could no longer see the gear she was supposed to be moving, pulling her hands back as the light danced around them.

When the rose beneath her began to glow, she scrambled to her feet, as did Ruby. Her ponytail whipped off to the left like a flag snapping taut in the wind.

“Did you—?”

“No,” Ruby shouted, grinning. “I think we did it!”

The gears were slowing now, but the light only intensified. Weiss felt a rumbling beneath her as the glowing shapes locked into place over their carved forms and halted. Slowly, the wing emblem broke free of the symbol and lifted, curved and indented walls rising smoothly from the surface of the plinth to encircle Weiss and Ruby in the track they’d pushed the gears along.

“I think we made it worse,” Weiss reflected when the rumbling stopped, leaving them standing in a ring of high stone walls with no visible means of exit.

“Hey! The rose is still glowing.” The light had faded from the rest of the floor, the gears once more appearing to be simple carvings, but the rose still shone with brilliant white light. Ruby frowned, then bent down and pressed her hand to it before Weiss could object.

The light flared and went out, motes dancing before Weiss’s eyes as Ruby straightened up again. “Now what did that do…?”

“The walls,” Weiss said immediately, reaching out. She stopped herself before she quite came into contact with the thin tracery of glowing white lines and symbols that had appeared. Squinting, she inspected them more closely. “It looks like some kind of writing.”

“It could be. I mean, if the Gems have their own language, they must have their own way of writing it, too.”

“It’s scrolling down the walls…”

“Ooh, Weiss!” Ruby tapped her shoulder, causing her to turn around. The half-Gem pointed directly across the enclosure, to the spot where the ring would began to taper into a wing shape if looked at from above. “What do those lines look like to you?”

Slowly, Weiss smiled. “The outline of a door.”

Ruby led the way, pressing her hand to an abstract rune at the heart of the outlined, rounded rectangle. The light around it brightened, and the slab of stone sank into the ground, revealing the entry to a second, smaller chamber filled with a peculiar indirect light.

“Whoa…” Ruby stepped right in, and Weiss wasted no time in following. Which was fortunate, considering as soon as they were inside, the door rose back into place much faster than it had lowered; the girls wheeled around, startled.

“At least it isn’t dark?” Ruby ventured.

“Please tell me we don’t have to solve another puzzle to get out.”

“Don’t be silly. This is clearly a miniboss room.” Ruby nodded confidently, looking around. “Once we get our new item we’ll be able to find the way out.”

Weiss raised a sceptical eyebrow. “More ‘video game logic’?”

“It hasn’t failed us yet!”

Weiss shook her head, letting her gaze travel over the room and its contents. “What _is_ all this stuff, anyway?”

The room was a far cry from the austerity of the rest of the… _pocket dimension,_ as much as Weiss hated to think of it like that. It was packed floor to ceiling with, well, stuff. Rolled-up rugs, stacks of books, any number of boxes—a mind-boggling jumble of cardboard, carved wood, weathered treasure chests and plastic tubs—there was a broken chair, beautifully-upholstered, which had an array of gowns in different colours and historical styles draped over it, an assortment of shoes laying haphazardly beneath it.

“I, uh.” Ruby cleared her throat. When she spoke again, her voice was edged in laughter. “I think we just found Mom’s junk room.”

A junk room.

Ruby was looking at her, lips pressed tightly together, incriminating _snerk_ sounds escaping her.

A _junk room._

Weiss felt her eye begin to twitch. A snicker pushed past Ruby’s lips.

“Are you _serious?”_ Weiss seethed; Ruby, meanwhile, burst out laughing. “Who hides a junk room behind a hidden door under a magical puzzle inside an alternate dimension that can only be opened _by a dog?_ Who thinks something like that is a good idea!? Why would you do that? Why would _anyone_ do that!?”

“I have no idea _,”_ Ruby gasped, wiping away tears of mirth. “She had two houses and a fortress she could have used instead! This is _awesome.”_

“I can’t—I mean, come _on,_ what…?” Weiss threw up her hands. “Well, I guess we better start looking for secret passageways and trapdoors! Maybe a one-way mirror? Some hidden cameras?”

Still chuckling to herself, Ruby had begun picking her way through Summer’s belongings, heading for the back of the room. “Come on, maybe there’s something further in.”

“Oh, yeah, maybe we’ll find her record collection.” Weiss snorted, bracing herself on the chair as she placed her feet delicately around all the trip hazards.

“Ooh, if we do, we’re taking it home with us. No way three people who were around for the phonograph don’t have a record player between them.”

“I was being _sarcastic,_ Ruby.”

“I know, but now I’m kinda hoping for it. I bet she was a jazz person.”

“Based on what, exactly?”

“Intuition,” Ruby said blithely. _“Oh.”_ She stopped. “Oh, Weiss, look at that.”

Weiss stepped gingerly around a crate of… _gold-edged china,_ seriously, why would a Gem own an expensive set of dishes?—and squeezed herself in beside Ruby, who was staring down through the top of a display case surrounded by several feet of blessed empty space.

“Oh,” she breathed, resting a hand reverently on the glass. “Oh that is _beautiful.”_

It was a sword—a rapier, at least from its profile, but the slender blade wasn’t flat. Its cross section was square like a fencing foil. This sword clearly wasn’t meant for sport, though. The blade tapered to a wicked-sharp point, but thickened to almost the diameter of the handle at the ricasso. At first she thought it was basket-hilted, but no; the four delicate-looking prongs that curved down over the handle wouldn’t completely shield the wielder’s hand. The sword gleamed a brilliant silver beneath the glass. Weiss’s fingers itched to touch it.

“Is it a sword or a gun?” Ruby wondered. _“Ooh,_ or is it a sword _and_ a gun?”

“What about this says ‘gun’ to you?” Weiss asked incredulously.

“There, between the blade and the hilt. Doesn’t that look like a revolver cylinder? And those parts sticking out on the handle—hammer,” she pointed to the upper protrusion, then the lower, “trigger. See?”

Weiss hesitated. Ruby was trained to handle weapons, right? And Weiss knew her way around a sword, even if they were usually blunted. “We could always take a closer look.”

Ruby grinned. “I was really hoping you were gonna say that.”

The case wasn’t locked—that would be pretty superfluous after all the hoops they’d had to jump through just to get in the room—and soon enough Ruby had the weapon in her hands. She held it carefully by the hilt with the blade resting delicately on her open palm, raising it to her eye level and inspecting it closely.

“Yup,” she reported. “There’s a latch on the thing that looks like a cylinder.” Ruby pointed the blade at the ground, away from Weiss, and thumbed the latch; the blade pitched forward, exposing the inside of the cylinder. _“Oh_ -ho-ho! It’s a break-top. And it looks like it takes Dust.”

She flicked her wrist, the blade snapping back into place with a soft _click_ that still made Weiss jump. “Careful!”

“Don’t worry, it’s unloaded,” Ruby assured her. “And I meant it—it takes Dust, not Dust _rounds._ There isn’t a barrel, either. It might be built like a revolver, but it’s not actually a gun. I’m not even sure what the Dust is supposed to do. You wanna see it?”

Weiss took the sword carefully as Ruby offered it to her hilt-first. Now that she held it, it reminded her more of an epée than a foil, heavier and with a blade that wouldn’t bend so easily—or at all, as she discovered when she applied pressure to one of the flat sides. The grip was a little bigger around than a fencing sword’s, but not by much, and the pommel was slender and tapered in the same way.

Stepping back from Ruby, she tried manipulating the handle with her thumb and forefinger; it was a little unwieldy due to the weapon’s increased heft, but the tip followed her direction with precision once she’d adjusted enough to keep the wobbling to a minimum. It was well-balanced, even with the built-in cylinder. Setting her feet at a right angle, knees bent, Weiss tried a few passes, extending from the elbow and then in a longer thrust from the shoulder, rotating her wrist so the blade’s point moved in small, lazy circles, learning the way its weight dragged. Her lips curved into a smile as she batted an imaginary foil to the side and stepped in for a finishing lunge.

She nearly dropped the sword when a sharp, insistent flurry of barking exploded behind the door.

“Zwei!” Ruby exclaimed.

“Did he follow us?” Weiss swung the sword point-down and carried it in a reverse grip, leading the way out of the clutter with less care than she’d entered it. She kept her footing, though, and soon enough they were facing the door. “Zwei? Can you hear us?”

More barking.

“Do you think he can open the door?” Ruby wondered.

Weiss reached out towards the door, but before she could even touch it the stone slab shimmered and began to fade from sight. The walls were fading too, as were the room’s contents; soon the two of them stood in their second mysteriously-appearing dark chamber of the day, but at least this one had visible walls and ceiling. It was also, Weiss realised as her eyes adjusted, only _dim,_ not dark; greenish light emanated from near the top of the high pillars which supported the vaulted ceiling. Zwei sat in front of them, wiggling his stumpy tail and looking generally pleased with himself.

“So no…but basically yes,” Ruby concluded, blinking. “Hey! Look at that!” She beamed, gesturing to the sword Weiss still held. “We got a new item, and now we’re out! Gamers two, haters _zero.”_

“Wait—but—” Weiss looked behind them, seeing nothing but a flat expanse of wall crowned by a carving that resembled a round stained-glass window. This, too, emitted a soft green-tinted light. “How? _Are_ we really out? Is this the real world again?”

Zwei barked once.

“Is it once for yes, twice for no?” Ruby asked; she frowned when Zwei barked once. “Wait, that doesn’t actually prove anything…”

“A _rose_ window,” Weiss said suddenly, her eyes widening.

“Do what?”

She went to point, realised she was still holding the sword, and used her right hand instead. “That thing up there—it’s shaped like a kind of decorative window called a rose window. Maybe it’s just a coincidence…”

“Nope, video game logic, no coincidences. Gamers three!”

“Well, if this _is_ the real world, I don’t think we came out in a random spot. I think this might be the entrance to wherever we were. Somehow. I mean, we found a secret room under a puzzle on the floor. Why not a secret…dimension gate or whatever inside a wall?”

Zwei gave a single bark.

“Okay, let’s settle this.” Ruby bent down towards Zwei. “Are you blue?”

“Ruby, he’s a dog. He’s red-green colour blind.”

“Right, so he can tell whether he’s blue or not. So are you?”

Zwei barked twice.

“Are you the cutest doggo in the whole wide world?”

Zwei barked once.

“Well if that’s not empiricism, I don’t know what is,” Weiss drawled.

“If one bark means ‘yes’, he’s trying to agree with you,” Ruby pointed out. “So we’re back in the real world?”

_“Bark!”_

“And this is some kind of door to the other place?”

_“Bark!”_

“Does that mean you could let us back in if we asked?”

Zwei hesitated. He barked thrice, then whined, flattening his ears against his head.

“Oh, that’s okay,” Ruby said hastily. “We didn’t want to run right back in anyway. You’re a good boy. C’mere.”

She scooped Zwei off the floor, holding him snugly in her arms and scritching the back of his neck. He snuffled happily into the crook of her elbow.

“Um.” Weiss raised the sword as Ruby looked back at her. “What do we do with this?”

“No idea,” Ruby admitted. “We can figure that out when we get back to…Patch.”

She froze.

“Oh _crap._ I left the house! I left the _island!_ I mean, I don’t know where we are but I’m pretty sure there isn’t a giant castle-y place anywhere on Patch!”

“It wasn’t our fault, though,” Weiss said uncertainly, Ruby’s distress working its way into her as well. “They can’t hold it against you, right? We just followed Zwei. We didn’t even follow him off the property; we just got dumped here!”

Ruby set Zwei gently on the ground, digging out her scroll.

“Four o’ clock. I think it was sometime around two-thirty when Zwei ran off. Maybe they haven’t noticed we’re missing yet.”

Weiss thought of her scroll sitting abandoned on the patio table and felt a wave of anxious nausea, cold panic prickling over her scalp and dripping down her spine. _What if_ he _called? What if he called and I didn’t answer?_

“We need to get back,” she said immediately, shaken. “I—I left—we need to _go.”_

“Dang, still no signal,” Ruby muttered, shaking her scroll. “What’s the point of carrying this around if—hey, Weiss, wait up!”

The sound of Weiss’s heeled footsteps echoed through the cavernous chamber as she strode quickly across it, walking between the two lines of pillars in the area that seemed best-lit. Ruby jogged to catch up with her, Zwei loping alongside. “Yeah,” she said a little breathlessly, slowing to match Weiss’s rapid walk. “You’re right. We should pick up the pace.”

There was an elevator ahead, and the button—just one, the up arrow—was lit up.

“So technically I was right before, because _this_ is definitely a creepy basement,” Ruby declared, jabbing the button.

Weiss’s leg wouldn’t stop jittering as the elevator car rose, imagining all the potential worst-case scenarios. Her own grounding, under far less lenient terms than Ruby had enjoyed. Klein, fired for allowing Weiss liberties her father never would. Her permission to attend Signal withdrawn and with it her excuse (when had it become an excuse?) to stay in Vale with Ruby and her crazy Gem family and Pyrrha and even Jaune, who was a pretty okay guy when he could be distracted from his utterly embarrassing crush on her.

“You okay?” Ruby asked softly. Weiss jerked her head in a nod, her hand tightening on the sword. The other girl looked unconvinced, but she didn’t press.

The elevator doors opened. They stepped out into a round room with a large, mechanical-looking pillar in the centre. As they circled around it some of Weiss’s anxieties ebbed, damped by curiosity. If it was a machine of some sort, it was powered down, not even a whisper of sound or a hint of heat emanating from it.

Ruby pushed on one of the double doors; it opened with little apparent resistance. “Unlocked,” she murmured, then got a good look at what was outside and gasped.

“You’re a fuzzy little security breach, you know that?” she exclaimed, looking down at Zwei. “On the bright side, I can get us home in under ten minutes if we run.”

“What are you talking about?”

Ruby stood aside and gestured out the door. Weiss poked her head out and saw gleaming white stone, a film over the sky, and a strangely-familiar array of architecture. Like something she’d seen in a painting somewhere.

“Weiss Schnee,” Ruby said, surprisingly formal, “welcome to Beacon.”

* * *

It took closer to fifteen minutes, actually. Mostly this was because they did not, in fact, decide to run when one of them was holding a very sharp sword. Weiss also needed a good portion of the first minute to process the fact that she’d just been _inside_ Beacon Tower, and her steps had slowed considerably as she tipped her head back to examine the forcefield over the sky and the front of the tower itself, once they’d gotten far enough away for it to be easily visible.

“Here we go, here we go,” Ruby muttered, practically shooing Weiss onto the warp. Zwei bounded up after her. “I’ve never actually done this before, but it should be set so Patch is the only place it can take us. Ready?”

Weiss nodded coolly, trying not to advertise either her fraying composure or her dawning nervousness about teleporting for the first time. Gemkind jealously guarded the secrets of their technology, which was notoriously difficult to reverse-engineer and heavily reliant on non-terrestrial materials, limiting how much even a well-compensated Gem informant could offer their benefactor—something Weiss’s father had bemoaned more than once in her hearing. Most interested organics, Jacques Schnee included, saw teleportation as the holy grail of Gem science, and Weiss had heard her share of theories on how it was meant to work. Most of those theories, unfortunately, circled back to the idea that warps broke you down into atoms and printed you out again at the other end.

It was not something that sounded especially safe. Or comfortable.

Fortunately Weiss didn’t have much time to follow that spiral down, as once Ruby stepped onto the warp the whole platform immediately lit up, reminding her of the puzzle room. And then the light was gone, and they were standing in Ruby’s backyard, and the only thing that had changed was that there was a tingle in the back of her nose like she needed to sneeze.

“Okay, no one’s looking—let’s go!” Ruby half-whispered, jumping down from the platform. As Weiss descended the stairs, she caught a flash of movement at the house—light glinting off the handle of the back door as it turned.

“Someone’s coming!” she said urgently, then yelped as Ruby immediately grabbed her arm and hauled her forward with her enhanced speed. When the world was right again, they were around the side of the house, invisible from the back door, which she heard opening.

“Hey, Rubes! Weiss? Weiss Cream?”

 _Weiss Cream,_ Ruby mouthed at her, looking utterly delighted. Weiss scowled.

“Not the time!” she hissed. “What now? What are we supposed to do with the sword?”

“Umm…” Ruby looked around. “Hm…oh. Oh!”

Weiss followed her gaze to a tennis ball nestled in the grass. Something to keep Zwei entertained, presumably.

…Oh!

“You guys are still out here, right?” Yang called, a little quieter now; the door swung shut. “I’m not taking the fall if you ran off. _I’m_ not getting myself stuck here ’til August.”

“Lemme see that!” Ruby reached out and took the sword from her, stabbing the point into the ball, which effectively capped the end.

“Zwei!” she whisper-shouted, patting the side of her leg emphatically. “Zwei, come here!”

“Zwei!” Weiss added her own hushed voice.

The odd-coloured corgi was still out on the warp—was in fact sunning himself on it, the lazy little reality-warper, stretched out immodestly with his front paws curled back against his chest and his back legs splayed. Evidently, now that they were home, he no longer shared their sense of urgency, entirely ignoring even Yang. He did perk up a little when Weiss made a _sspsspss_ noise, turning his head to look over at them.

“Guys, come on,” Yang half-whined.

“Zwei,” Ruby pleaded in the exact same tone. Zwei wriggled, stretched, then rolled off the platform like a tubby ninja, landing with all four stubby paws on the ground. He began trotting towards their hiding spot.

“That’s it, that’s it!” Weiss encouraged him in as loud a whisper as she dared, bending down and patting her knees.

“Good boy, good Zwei, come here,” Ruby cajoled.

* * *

The half-empty glasses of lemonade were warm to the touch, and a scroll sat unattended on the stone surface of the patio table. Between that and the lack of any response from the girls, Yang was well on her way from _annoyed_ to _worried_ until Zwei tumbled off the warp where he’d been sunbathing and trundled towards the far side of the vegetable patch.

She tilted her head, her eyes squinting suspiciously as they followed him.

Yang placed her feet carefully as she crossed the patio; more carefully still when she reached the grass, turning her ankles so she slunk like a cat, keeping an eye on where her shadow fell in front of her. As she got closer, she heard an overlapping stream of half-whispered encouragements. A slow smirk spread over her face.

“And just _what_ is going on here?” she drawled as she rounded the corner. “Ruby and Weissy, sittin’ in a—?”

Her sly, casual posture failed immediately, eyes widening, spine straightening, arms dropping from where she’d started to cross them. Ruby, Weiss, and even Zwei all stared up at her in guilty surprise. Weiss was holding Zwei in her lap, while Ruby was in the process of feeding a long, slender object topped by a tennis ball into the corgi’s floof.

“No, seriously,” Yang managed after a long moment of frozen silence. “What the hell am I looking at?”

“Historical re-enactment,” Weiss blurted out immediately, almost drowned out by Ruby’s loud “Nothing! You see nothing!”

Yang pointed at Ruby but fixed her gaze on Weiss. “Nope.” Her finger moved to the human girl. _“What?”_

Weiss’s mouth worked silently. She exchanged a panicked glance with Ruby. “Cassia falling on her sword?” she suggested weakly.

“Alas, cruel fate,” Ruby croaked. “The pain is too much to bear.”

“Guilt,” Weiss corrected her in an undertone. “It was guilt.”

“The guilt!” Ruby cried, looking deeply uncomfortable. “For I have—uh—I have—Yang, _put that away!”_

“Yang!” Weiss wailed in counterpoint.

“Nope,” Yang repeated without taking her eyes off her scroll. She continued to film. “This is really what you’re going with, I’mma document _every word._ Keep going, this is gold. The camera loves you guys.” She twirled her hand, _keep rolling._

Ruby and Weiss looked at each other again, seeming to share a moment of silent communication. Then, carefully, Ruby adjusted her grip on the thing lodged in Zwei’s floof and drew it out.

Slowly, Yang lowered her scroll. Her chest felt tight. Funny how breathing only seemed to be optional until she couldn’t.

“Where did you find that?” she asked quietly.

* * *

Ruby had started to explain, but Yang had quickly cut her off. “No, wait. Not here. Just—shove the sword in the dog and meet me in my room.”

So the passage of several minutes had found them sitting in Yang’s room—Ruby on the inexplicable bed, Yang slumped on a beanbag chair, and Weiss gingerly perched on the edge of a dressing table half-covered with a neatly-arranged assortment of brushes, combs, and what appeared to be a single bottle of purple nail polish. Zwei was curled up at Ruby’s feet, mouthing at the tennis ball they’d removed from the sword, which now rested in Yang’s hands.

“Some kind of secret vault at Beacon, huh?” she mused, tilting the blade and watching as it caught the light.

Ruby nodded. “It was full of a bunch of stuff she must’ve collected over time. Clothes, books, little things.”

“And that sword.” Weiss crossed her arms. “It was the only weapon we saw in there. I thought Summer’s weapon was like Ruby’s—it can transform into anything, right?”

“It can turn into a customised version of any weapon summoned by any Gem its wielder’s ever Fused with,” Yang confirmed.

“‘Fused’?” Weiss echoed blankly.

“Wait, that’s how—? But I’ve never Fused before!” Ruby protested.

“Guess your Gemstone remembers Summer’s Fusions or something. So as long as _you’ve_ seen a weapon belonging to a Gem your mom Fused with, you can copy it.”

“But why get a special material sword, then? Couldn’t she have just…found another Gem with a sword?”

Yang snickered. “What, you think Summer just ran around looking for weapons she wanted to collect so she could Fuse with their owners? Fusion’s not really an on-demand, casual thing. Remember that whole heart-to-heart Qrow and I needed before we could do it? And we’d even Fused with each other before!” She shook her head. “Besides, this isn’t just any sword. It’s specially made to harness Dust. See these exhaust ports? Summer could use them to power up the blade with different elements, or send out beams and bursts of Dust. Great for non-lethal takedowns, taking advantage of the environment, even reshaping the battlefield by putting up barriers.”

She gestured with the blade as she spoke, her motions hardly those of an expert swordswoman but graceful and controlled nonetheless. Somehow. Despite the fact that she never actually got up from the beanbag chair.

“So you actually saw her use it before!” Ruby exclaimed.

“A couple times.” Yang’s expression grew distant as she lowered the sword again, shifting her weight to sit with her back a little straighter. “Not often. But I know she used it a lot back in the war. It was all official-looking and leader-ly, and all those Dust tricks must’ve been useful in those kinds of bigger battles. We looked for it after she…after you were born, but we couldn’t find it. Guess now we know why.”

There was a moment of quiet, none of them meeting each other’s eyes. Zwei continued to champ and worry at the tennis ball, oblivious to the mood. It was Ruby, her voice slow and reluctant, who finally spoke.

“We should tell the others about this, shouldn’t we.”

“We should,” Yang agreed, shifting uncomfortably. Her chair made a sound like a shaken maraca.

“It’s the responsible thing to do. …But I wasn’t supposed to leave the property.”

“We didn’t mean to,” Weiss said again, but Yang had already picked up the thread.

“And we did _just_ get to the point where we’re all cool with each other again. Be a shame to rock the boat now.”

“Plus Qrow just got back from one of his _rragh mighty Huntsman_ trips and I don’t wanna mess up his decompression.”

“And you know Oz isn’t gonna take it well when he finds out there’s a pocket dimension he didn’t know about in his basement.”

“Oh my gods, we’ll never get him to warm up to Zwei if he finds out he can get past the shield!”

“Okay, time out!” Weiss cut them off, sweeping her arms through the air in an X shape. “Didn’t you guys _just_ get in trouble for going behind people’s backs? And now you want to do it again?”

Ruby looked down at the ground. Yang opted for the ceiling instead, tapping her foot anxiously, rolling the sword in her hands.

“Couldn’t you at least tell your dad?” Weiss asked Ruby.

“No way the information stops at him,” Yang said, shaking her head; for her part, Ruby nodded agreement. “Tai takes his job seriously, and he and Qrow actually hang out sometimes. Either he’ll feel like he has to report it to Ozpin as a matter of Beacon’s security or he’ll end up spilling to Qrow because of a guilty conscience.”

“In other words, all the reasons _you_ should be telling them yourselves?”

“Don’t you mean _we?”_

Weiss’s hand clenched on her scroll. She hadn’t missed any calls or messages while she and Ruby had been working to escape Summer’s vault. But the chain of responsibility kept going. What if they told and someone reached out to her father and told _him_ what had happened? Qrow clearly didn’t have a high enough opinion of the Schnee family to say anything, but Ozpin might consider it a professional obligation and even if he didn’t Taiyang might feel Jacques was owed an explanation as a fellow father.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly.

Ruby spoke up again at last. “How about this? We don’t tell them for now. Just for now! We look for some answers on our own, and we talk to them once we know the whole story. That way no one has to worry about it, and maybe it’ll have been long enough no one’ll be upset either.”

“The whole story? What’s there to investigate?” Yang asked. “Zwei’s an enigma, but we don’t really have any way of figuring out where he came from or what’s up with him; we just let it slide ’cause he’s obviously a friendly. I mean, look at ’im. The vault? I don’t know how you’d even build something like that, let alone hide it, let _alone_ make it so a dog unlocks it. We’ve got plenty of questions, but where could we start looking for answers?”

“So you think we _should_ tell the others?”

“No! I just…we can’t really say ‘oh, we’ll tell them when we have answers’ but not actually have a plan to get answers. If we’re gonna lie so we don’t get in trouble, we should own that we’re doing that, not pretend like it’s temporary to make ourselves feel better.”

“I know where we could start,” Weiss said suddenly. “Yang, do you have anything to draw with?”

“Uh—yeah, in the drawer under you.”

Weiss turned her hips and sure enough, her legs had been blocking the vanity’s drawer. She got down and opened it, finding an old leather-bound notebook and a couple of pens.

“Anyway!” Yang said in a brighter tone behind her. “Sword’s yours now.”

“I don’t know how to use it, though,” she heard Ruby say.

“Cool, that makes all of us. ’Cept maybe Ozpin, I guess. Fights like his cane’s a sword half the time anyway…”

Weiss tuned them out as she resumed her seat on the vanity, doing her best to roughly sketch the crown shape that Ruby had insisted didn’t belong with the Rose Rebellion symbol. Yang might have been the youngest Gem, but that still made her thousands of years older than either of them. Maybe she’d know something.

“Here,” she said when she was done, handing the notebook and pen to Yang and cutting her off mid-sentence. The Ametrine’s hands were empty now; Ruby held the sword gingerly in her lap. “We found this carved into the same surface as the Rebellion symbol puzzle. Do you recognise it?”

Yang raised her eyebrows as she examined the drawing. “Hey, this is actually pretty good. Looks good, anyway, I have no idea if it looks like what you were trying to draw.”

“So that’s a no.”

“Yeah, I’ve never seen it before.” She closed the notebook with a _thump,_ dropping it next to her and fidgeting with the pen. “But if it was carved next to a bunch of Huntsman emblems, smart money says it’s another Huntsman emblem, and that means it might be in the registry.”

“There’s a registry?”

“Used to be, back before Hunting was all freelance work.”

“Do you have access?” Ruby asked.

“Sure. I just have to warp over to Haven and use one of their library terminals once I’m allowed to leave the house again.”

Weiss exchanged confused looks with Ruby. “Why Haven?”

“Beacon’s all powered down. The elevators shouldn’t even have been running.” Yang frowned again. “I guess Qrow and Ozpin must have forgotten to shut them off after the _Lamp_ mission.”

“So we’re agreed, then. We don’t read the others in until after we’ve solved the mystery of the crown emblem…or things have gone completely sideways and it’s obviously too dangerous to keep hiding the information even if Qrow’s going to chew us out and Ozpin’s going to be too disappointed to even look at us and Dad’ll look all sad and probably say something about how being smart and careful doesn’t just mean staying out of danger in the first place…”

Ruby’s confident tone weakened as she spoke, her determined expression slowly morphing into one of dread.

“Not too late to tell everyone today,” Yang ventured, without much enthusiasm.

Another awkward pause.

“Well! We’ll have to hide the sword—I guess inside Zwei’s floof, just to be extra-safe. Not like any of us can…” Suddenly Ruby looked up at Weiss, something sparking behind her eyes. _“You_ can use it!”

“She what now?” Yang turned her head to stare at her, raising a dubious eyebrow.

Weiss blushed under the scrutiny. “I—I fence.” She lifted her chin, setting her jaw. _“Competitively._ I’ve placed several times in Atlesian leagues.”

“Yeah? How high?” Yang challenged.

“High enough!”

“Yang! Quit it. You can get Dust pretty easily too, right Weiss? So you could actually use it the way Mom meant it to be used.”

Before Weiss could quite process what was happening, Ruby was in front of her, offering the sword up in her palms with a cheerful smile.

“Besides, I’m already trying to learn how to use three different kinds of weapons, and I’ve only gotten as far as I have with the rifle and the scythe by slacking off in hand-to-hand.”

“Oh _now_ she admits it!”

 _“Yang!”_ Ruby wheeled around, stomping her foot. “I am _trying_ to have a moment here!”

“You’re _trying_ to give me your mom’s sword.” Weiss couldn’t help the way her eyes locked onto the beautiful blade; she was drawn to it. “It’s practically an heirloom. I can’t take something like that. A-and I’m a fencer, not a fighter! There’s a huge difference between what I do and real fighting.”

She reached out and closed Ruby’s hands around the sword.

“Thank you for being willing to trust me with this, but…I can’t use it, either. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry,” Ruby said, shaking her head. “I shouldn’t have tried to push it on you. I don’t always think about how fighting and hunting and stuff aren’t part of everyone’s lives and… _I’m_ sorry.” She laughed ruefully, holding the sword in her closed fists against her chest. “I’m really not trying to keep dragging you into danger.”

“I know. And I…” Weiss fixed her eyes on a point over Ruby’s shoulder. “I don’t really mind,” she admitted quietly. “It’s kind of fun.”

A sharp sound pulled them out of the moment; Yang had clapped her hands together, holding them like that in front of her widely-smiling mouth.

“Did I just hear Weiss give the all-clear for _on-purpose_ crazy adventures?”

Slowly, Ruby grinned. “You know, I think you did!”

“Why are you guys looking at me like that? …Seriously, stop it, you’re creeping me out!”

Yang picked up the notebook and pen again, flipping to a fresh page and beginning to write. “Don’t mind me, just writing a list of all the awesome places we have to take you now…”

“A-aren’t you supposed to be cooking dinner or something!?”

“Eh, I’ll order in. My treat.” Yang flipped another page, pen poised. “What d’you want?”

Ruby gasped. “West Animan! _Fried dumplings.”_

“Oh _hell_ yes. Hey, Weiss, you a wonton girl or a dumpling girl?”

“Either?”

“Ah, the indecisive person’s ‘both’. Both it is. Hmm, Meihua does some Mistralian too…should order that weird adzuki dessert Oz likes…”

Weiss watched on helplessly as the conversation spun away from her, feeling as if she’d just signed a contract without reading it. She hadn’t meant to imply she was okay with leaping blindly into danger, but she couldn’t bring herself to correct them or take back what she’d said. So did that mean she _was_ okay with it, then?

She found her attention drawn once again to the sword in Ruby’s hands as she and Yang continued to build an absurdly-large list of Animan foodstuffs. She’d meant what she said. She didn’t think she could fight with that sword or any other, not in real combat. But there was a part of her that really wanted to try. She wanted to be able to keep up with Ruby, to try to catch up to Yang. She wanted to be someone who didn’t think twice about going off on crazy adventures full of sci-fi super tech and monsters and magic. It was part of Ruby’s life, and some of the best parts of Weiss’s life lately had been the parts that overlapped with that.

…Maybe when she got home, she’d try some new drills. Change up her footwork a little. And maybe see if she could scrounge up some Dust without drawing too much attention from her father.

“Hey, Weiss!” Yang tossed her an open scroll that Weiss barely caught in time, startled out of her reverie. “That’s their menu. Pick an entrée!”

“Half of this isn’t even authentic,” Weiss sighed, looking it over.

“And some of the best curries were invented by Mantelians. Doesn’t mean they’re not delicious.”

“Zwei,” Ruby pleaded. “Come on, I need that tennis ball back. I don’t wanna stab you through the floof on accident.”

Weiss ducked her head to read over the menu, barely even taking it in. Mostly, she just needed to hide her smile. It wouldn’t do to let them think she _enjoyed_ all the weirdness, now would it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaah I’m so excited to write the next chapter because according to the outline it’s time for Mirror Gem! It’s not supposed to be a two-parter, so Chapter 9 shouldn’t end on any kind of cliffhanger, but in case it was unclear _I have no idea what I’m doing._ I just write fanfiction, man. What happens, happens.
> 
> Comments and kudos are as always very welcome. Thanks for reading!


	9. Record Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby, Weiss, and Yang start to unravel the mystery of Summer’s secret chamber and the unfamiliar crown emblem, but while searching for the next piece to the puzzle, they stumble across the last thing any of them ever expected to find. Whether it’s a dark secret or just a terrible mistake is anybody’s guess, but the Rose Rebellion may not have been the shining example of nobility they all grew up believing it to be…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now see, this? This is more my usual kind of gap between updates. Whoops. Also hey, remember when I said this wasn’t gonna be a two-parter? Double whoops. That said, I am real excited for reactions to both this chapter and the next, so as always, your feedback is appreciated! I hope you enjoy!

“Remember,” Ruby told Weiss, _“_ make sure you call him _Doctor_ Oobleck. A lot of Sphenes go into research or teaching because of the whole learning-obsessed thing, so academic titles are a big deal.”

“We ready?” Yang prompted, already holding the door knocker in her hand. It, like the rest of the small house, was ornate yet worn, cared-for but still obviously _old_ —a fairly typical combination in those neighbourhoods of Vale which existed under the care and watch of the Vale Historical Society. Preservation was a double-edged sword.

“Ready,” Ruby confirmed.

Weiss crossed her arms. “Let’s just hope he has some answers for us…”

Yang let the knocker drop. Almost as soon as it made contact with the plate, the impact resounding sharply through the air, the door snapped open, revealing a slight, unkempt figure who was all-over green, from his yellow-green skin to his dandelion-puff of dark green hair; a shockingly yellow tie stood out against the dull colours of his rumpled shirt and trousers. His shoes, as ever, were mismatched, and Ruby was moved once again to wonder if he’d manifested like that or if he’d forgotten shoes entirely and just threw on whatever material ones came to hand when he needed them. His eyes were barely visible through thick, round lenses that covered a disproportionate amount of his face. A triangular Gemstone sat just above the bridge of those, at the very top of his nose: apple green, flecked with glints of orange and yellow as it caught the light.

“Ruby! Yang!” Oobleck’s words were clipped and sharp—not upset, just _fast._ If he’d been organic, Ruby would have expected to hear his neck pop from the speed with which he looked between them. “You!” He jabbed a finger at Weiss. “You, I don’t know.”

“She’s a friend of mine,” Ruby said. “Her name’s Weiss. Hello, Doctor Oobleck!”

“Hey, Doc!” Yang chimed in.

“Yes, yes, hello, I assumed, very good. Come in!”

He vanished from the doorway in a blur, leaving Weiss gaping at the empty foyer. She snapped her jaw shut quickly and lifted her chin, glaring at Ruby and Yang as if daring them to say anything.

“Sphenes also have super-speed,” Yang said airily, stepping over the threshold. “Read faster, think faster, move faster.”

“Mostly Oobleck’s just impatient though.” Ruby followed the Ametrine in, gesturing encouragingly to Weiss, who at last ventured inside and shut the door gently behind her.

Well, she tried to, anyway. Ultimately she had to haul against it with her shoulder and hip before it finally sank heavily back into its frame with a deep, squealing-scraping _thump._

“Old houses,” Ruby said apologetically, feeling an unaccountable need to explain. “Nothing fits right. Uh, he’ll be in the dining room.”

Which did in fact contain a dining table, but that was about all that connected it to its alleged function. All but two of the chairs were weighted down with books, the table strewn with more tomes and notebooks and loose-leaf paper, pens and half-sharpened pencils scattered among empty coffee mugs. Oobleck was blurring around the room; two more chairs emptied before Ruby’s eyes, the piles on the table growing higher and more precarious as a result.

“Please, sit down!” When Oobleck became visible again, he was smiling, standing behind the chair at…well, technically the head of the table, but it had drifted well to the left of centre. Yang took the other chair that had been empty, leaving Ruby and Yang to settle on the far side of the table from the door, on Oobleck’s left.

“Now!” Suddenly Oobleck was in the chair, a brief shudder of colour and stirring of air all there was to mark the motion. “How can I help you ladies?” His hands were clasped on the table, the interlaced fingers of each hand drumming against the knuckles of the other as he looked expectantly between the three of them. “Peter’s out right now, if he’s the one you’re looking for.”

“‘Peter’?” Weiss asked out of the corner of her mouth.

“Mr. Port,” Ruby murmured in kind. “Dr. Oobleck’s housemate.”

“Nah, just wanted to ask you about something, Doc.” Yang pulled out her copy of Weiss’s drawing, unfolding it as she spoke. “Looks like someone’s emblem, but I didn’t get any hits when I ran it through the Hunt registry.”

Once Yang’s search had proved fruitless, Weiss had gone through as many of her family’s records as she could, while for her part Ruby had crept through Ozpin’s workroom when he’d gone out for a day, photographing anything she planned to investigate before she dared to touch it and replacing everything she moved with extreme care. Neither the Schnee archives nor Ozpin’s files had yielded any information on the mysterious crown symbol, however. Oobleck was the court of last resort before a tedious manual search of Beacon itself—at least the parts Yang couldn't eliminate right off.

It looked like that might not be necessary though: Oobleck’s eyes widened behind the thick lenses of his glasses, and he snatched the paper out of Yang’s hands with a force and speed that caused the edge to tear. “Where did you see this?” he demanded. The girls exchanged quick looks.

“An old carving up at Beacon,” Ruby said; their agreed-upon half-truth. Oobleck had been bound to ask. “Do you know what it is, Doctor?”

Oobleck was silent, silent for as long as Ruby could ever remember him being. “It’s an emblem,” he agreed at last. “Have you shown this to Ozpin? Qrow?”

“Meaning _they_ would recognise it!” Weiss had a glint in her eye.

“Meaning you didn’t.” Oobleck’s face pinched into disapproval.

“It’s nothing dangerous, is it?” Ruby asked anxiously.

“Well.” Oobleck’s frown deepened, but his eyes flicked away; he nudged the bridge of his glasses as though to adjust them, though it didn’t look like they’d shifted at all on his face. “I suppose not.”

“And can you _really_ see Qrow or,” something between a laugh and a scoff escaped Yang, _“Ozpin_ giving us a straight answer?”

 _“I_ don’t want to give you a straight answer,” Oobleck admitted, much to Ruby’s surprise; like most Sphenes, he hadn’t strayed far from his remit as a scholar and consultant. Absorbing and then sharing information was literally what he had been made for, and normally he relished it. “But better I than them, so soon after losing Lady Rose…”

‘So soon’ meaning Ruby’s entire life—but to a Gem, it might as well have been yesterday. An unsettling thought, given her presumed mortality. She shoved it away.

“This emblem isn't in the registry because its owner wasn't a Huntress. She never got the chance to become one.” Oobleck smoothed out the drawing with strange care, wistfulness tinging his heavy tone. “The name she chose was Glynda. She was a Rebellion soldier—an officer, but the lines blurred, such a small force, so much to do. You know Ozpin was a general?—well, commander; we didn’t know any rank system outside Homeworld’s castes, so besides the Lady we had commanders, their seconds, and then the rank and file. Glynda was Ozpin’s second. Unforgiving taskmaster—brilliant warrior—loyal follower, loyal friend.”

A look of knowing dread crept over Yang’s face.

“‘Was’?” Ruby echoed, feeling sick to her stomach.

“She was shattered,” Yang said. “Wasn’t she?”

“You’ve heard of her?” Ruby asked.

“Not even once.” Yang didn't look away from Oobleck, who'd closed his eyes. “That’s how I know.”

“When you say shattered,” Weiss began, clearly uneasy, “you don't mean…?”

Ruby’s hand reflexively moved to shield her vulnerable Gemstone. She could see Yang cradle her elbow, Oobleck brush his fingers between his eyes, caught by the same urge to reassure themselves they were whole and unmarred.

“Oh,” Weiss whispered.

“None of us handled the news well,” Oobleck admitted softly, his words measured in a way Ruby had never heard from him. “Qrow was enraged, wanted revenge. And Ozpin…got very still, and very quiet, and he's never quite been the way he was before. A little bit quieter and a little bit more still. Two good friends gone in as many weeks.” Oobleck shook his head. “Poor Lady Rose. The look on her face when she brought back the shards…”

* * *

“Well, now I'm just _sad,”_ Yang complained, kicking in the general direction of a fallen stick as they walked away from the weary old house and the weary old Gem inside it.

“At least we have an idea about where to look for more information.” Ruby was feeling rather subdued as well, but she tried to focus on the positive. “If Glynda worked for Ozpin, she must have worked in Beacon Tower, right?”

“Right.” Yang nodded. “It’s supposed to be the oldest part of the fortress, so even if she didn’t, that’s probably where we’ll find anything dating back to the Gem War, but I’d lay money on her having space there.”

“And since now we know your mother's vault can't have been built before Beacon was or after the war ended—probably not after Glynda…died—maybe answers about her will lead to answers about the vault,” Weiss said. “Or Zwei, I guess. How are we going to search, though? Floor by floor?”

“Yep,” said Yang; before Weiss could protest, the Gem added, “starting from the top. Right below the top, actually, ’cause we can rule out Ozpin’s office, but he wouldn’t have wanted his right-hand Gem too far away. I mean, come on; he literally _lives_ with all of us. So back to Patch, or do we got another stop?”

“Back to Patch,” Ruby confirmed. “And up to Beacon.”

* * *

Three elevators, three searchers, and the safest place on the planet—splitting up to search it was a no-brainer, once they worked out who’d take which floors. Yang’s prediction proved accurate, though: they hadn’t made it even a fifth of the way down the tower before Ruby’s phone chimed. Weiss had found something.

“Why is everything from the CCT floor up open-plan and then the rest of the floors are like _this?”_ Ruby wondered, knocking her knuckles against the curved wall opposite the elevator as she followed it around. Weiss had said she’d be in the fifth room on the left past the elevators.

“You just answered your own question,” Yang told her. “The whole place is built around an old Gem comms tower—that thing taking up the whole middle of the ground floor? It keeps going up through the outer tower. Vale’s CCTS piggybacks off of it.”

“So the CCT floor is the top of the comms tower?”

“And it and everything higher were added in by the Rebellion later on.”

Ruby counted the floors in her head. “The CCT floor is the next one up,” she realised.

“So this would’ve been the old tower’s top floor, I guess.”

“Which means we should have searched here _first,”_ came Weiss’s exasperated voice; she was standing in the doorway of the room she’d called them to, her arms crossed over her chest. She’d left her hat back at the house on Patch, but she still had her little purse slung across her body. Zwei sat at her feet—he’d decided to follow them into the warp, and while he responded best to Ruby normally, his keen dog instincts had allowed him to identify Weiss as the Ultimate Sucker, and he had latched onto her accordingly. “If you knew this used to be the top, why didn’t you say so?”

“I don’t know _when_ it was the top!” Yang protested. “People kept working on Beacon all through the war! I just told you everything I know about it; it looked like it does now the first time I saw it, but who knows when they finished construction? For all I know, Glynda could have moved in the day after they stuck the light on top. Or they might’ve done that centuries after the war ended! I never asked! It wasn’t important.”

Weiss rolled her eyes, but didn’t argue the point further—she did that a lot when she didn’t want to concede an argument she was pretty sure she was losing. “Well, I think we know now,” she said, turning on her heel and leading them inside, Zwei trotting beside her.

The room inside was thick with dust, enough to make Ruby sneeze. It formed a heavy layer over the utilitarian glass desk, the sci-fi curves of the metal chair behind it, the low shelf of bottles and jars and strange devices set against the opposite wall. A few books and files took up another, taller set of shelves—odd to think of Gems using paper, but then again Ozpin did, and he _had_ been in charge here once. There wasn’t much else in the room; the space was brutally spare.

“I know,” Weiss groaned as Ruby sneezed again. “I’ve already gone through half my pack of tissues.” She reached into her purse and handed one to Ruby, who took it gratefully. “How are some of the rooms so dusty? No one comes here anymore but Gems, and you don’t have cells to shed.”

“Most of this place is cleaner,” Ruby agreed, plaintive through her stuffing-up nose.

Yang pointed across to a louvred window, cracked open less than an inch. “Between that and the gaps around the door, I guess. I don’t see any vents.”

“That’s strange, though, isn’t it?”

Yang waved a hand vaguely. “Well, when you don’t need to breathe or keep your temperature stable…”

“But the rest of the tower is set up for organics. The whole campus is practically a monument to cross-species cooperation. Why not this room?” Weiss persisted.

Ruby looked around again. Thought of the sorrow and loneliness that filled so much of Beacon, making her heart ache. It was as thick in this office as the dust.

“Because no one comes in here,” she said quietly. “Ever. The window’s open because the last person to use the room last left it that way before they left for good, and no one ever came to close it. There’s no vent because no one ever came to put one in. It’s been _left_ like this. Like a shrine.”

Yang and Weiss went quiet, digesting that. Ruby shook herself. “So what’d you find, Weiss?”

Weiss opened her mouth to speak, then seemed to change her mind, instead walking around behind the desk and picking up a small metallic box which had been sitting on it. It was less dusty than everything else—but it would be, if Weiss had already picked it up and looked at it before contacting them. She held it out, letting them see the crown emblem etched into the lid.

“Ooh.” Yang reached out, eyes gleaming with interest. “What’s in it?”

But Weiss drew it back towards herself, looking torn. “Shards,” she said at last. “Gem shards.”

“Glynda,” Ruby guessed. It was as if the box possessed its own gravity. She couldn’t tear her eyes away.

Neither could Weiss, even as she lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Who else?”

“…Well.” Yang took in a breath and blew it out forcefully. “Guess this is her office, then.” She looked around, her voice softening. “Oh, man. It’s not a shrine at all. It’s her tomb.”

Weiss’s movements were gentle and careful as she replaced the box on the desk, tracing her fingers lightly over Glynda’s emblem. “Whoever did this could’ve at least straightened up a little.” Reproach tinged her voice. “It just doesn’t seem very respectful.”

To Ruby’s surprise, Yang made a noise of dissent, somewhere between a thoughtful hum and a grunt. “I mean, they took the time to make that box, and they left her shards in a place where she left her mark,” she elaborated when the other girls looked at her curiously. “Gems use Gemstone shards as spare parts, you know that? There’s tons of energy and processing power all going to waste once the consciousness inside’s been smashed up. We’re big on the whole ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ thing. Well—the last two, anyway.”

Ruby found that idea uncomfortable, but she tried to set it aside. _It’s not really my place to judge, I guess._ “So…this is a big deal by Gem standards?” she surmised.

“And a waste of resources,” Weiss said, looking uncomfortable even as she seemed to grasp the logic.

“Hey, we’re not totally heartless about shattered Gems! We just don’t have the same hang-ups and rituals as organics.” Yang put a hand on her hip. “If we know what a Gem wanted done with their shards, we do it. Otherwise we play it safe and bubble what’s left of them.”

“Wait, so have you all sat down and talked about what you want to happen if…something happens?” Ruby wrinkled her nose. “Sounds kind of morbid.”

“I suppose it’s not all that different from writing a will,” Weiss reflected.

Yang snorted. “I think Ozpin _did_ write a will, ’cause—” She gestured around the room and by extension the campus as a whole. “Property and crap. I _know_ he and Qrow have a pact that if one of them dies the other uses their shards to build something cool. I told ’em to just shove me under my sunflowers.” She grinned. “They’ll be stuck gardening _forever_ if they outlive me!”

“That’s a healthy outlook,” Weiss sighed.

Yang shrugged. “Healthier than a dusty office and a pocket-sized coffin. It’s supposed to be respectful, but _damn,_ this is sad.”

It was as if her words summoned the oppressive atmosphere of earlier back into the room, and Glynda’s— _shoot,_ Yang was right, Glynda’s _coffin_ drew their attention once again. Ruby shivered, turning away.

“Right! Well, we know what we’re here for, team!”

“No, we don’t,” Weiss scoffed.

“I mean, we’ve got a vague idea,” Yang tried.

“No. We don’t.”

“This was one-third _your_ idea, Weiss!” Ruby protested, eyes beseeching.

“Which is why I’m here.” Weiss crossed her arms. “I’m just saying we shouldn’t expect this to be easy.”

“Nothing ever is,” Yang groaned, stretching her arms behind her.

“Pessimists! Pessimists, the both of you!” Ruby pointed towards the shelves. “Yang, you’re the only one who can read Gem writing, so you’re on written-word duty.”

 _“Read,”_ Yang echoed, hooking her fingers into air-quotes as she walked past Ruby as directed. “Well, one word in four’s better than nothing, I guess…”

“Weiss, look through the cabinets. I’ll see if I can get the desk terminal running.”

Weiss dismissively waved a hand in the air and went to it. “Better you than me.”

Ruby circled Glynda’s desk and hopped up into the _impossibly uncomfortable_ chair, wincing and wiggling as she tried to find a position that wouldn’t leave her sore.

“Stupid hard-light people who don’t need padding or back support or—seriously, no arm-rests? Ugh,” she grumbled under her breath. Maybe this thing had been ripped right off the bridge of a cool space battleship. Or maybe it had been made by someone with zero experience in making chairs because there was a war going on and beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“Alright, computer,” Ruby purred, bracing her hands on the desk surface and smirking. “Prepare to surrender your secrets.”

* * *

 _“Ugh_ I give _up!”_ Ruby wailed, dropping her forehead to the desk with a sharp _thump_ that was more loud than painful.

“Wow. Such an epic battle,” Weiss said, deadpan. “No one can say you didn’t stick it out. I mean, an entire half-hour, that’s really something, Ruby.”

“Forty minutes!” Ruby screeched, pointing at the terminal’s holographic display. “It took _ten_ to get to this screen! Yang, are you _sure_ you translated the password hint correctly!?”

Yang didn’t even look over. “I am one hundred percent confident in my translation.”

“You’re a hundred percent confident in _everything_ you do,” Weiss pointed out dryly.

“That’s the power of self-actualisation, baby!”

 _“Ugh._ Look,” Weiss said, leaning closer to Ruby and looking up at the display, “even if you guess the password correctly, how do you know you’re putting it in right? Those symbols look more like Animan kanji than the Vytal alphabet we’re used to.”

“And those are the simplified versions!” Yang chimed in.

“This is a nightmare,” Ruby groaned. “How are _none_ of us fluent in Gem-ese or whatever?”

“Hey! It’s hard enough to keep up with all the human languages. Do you even know how much of a relief it was when this weird Valean-Mantelian mashup caught on?”

Weiss preened. “I’m actually fluent in three other languages, thank you very much.”

Wordlessly, Ruby swiped her hand over the desk’s surface, sliding the holographic keyboard down to Weiss’s position in a smooth blur of light.

“…Organic languages. I have no idea what I’m looking at here.”

“It gets better,” Ruby said, propping her chin on her palm and giving Weiss a dead-eyed stare. “If you need to input numbers, remember to use base-8.”

“You’re serious?”

“Ye _p.”_ She popped the plosive hard.

“Whoa, hey! Check this out!”

At Yang’s call, Ruby and Weiss perked up. Yang was straightening from her crouch on the floor, holding a hardbound book triumphantly aloft.

“What is it?” Ruby asked, sliding out of the chair.

“The symbol on the first page means _record._ Noun, not verb. No idea what it’s a record _of,_ but that’s promising, right? And get a load of this!” Yang turned the book so its front cover was facing the girls, and Ruby felt a shock go through her.

From beside her, Weiss asked, “Is that a _Gem?”_

“Yup. Or it was, anyway.” Yang’s words were light and unbothered, but Ruby saw her brows draw together as she looked down at the book, or more specifically at the Gemstone embedded in its cover. It was a perfectly-round cabochon with a glassy shine, setting it distinctly apart from the silky gloss of Qrow’s elongated Pearl stone, but this was the first black Gemstone Ruby had seen other than his. And like his, it wasn’t _really_ black: when the light caught it just right, she thought it looked more like a very dark blue or purple, semi-transparent, and she could see a faint satin-sheen of yellow threaded through it like a tiger’s-eye, the pattern invisible unless you looked at it from the right angle. There was even a blue-violet streak running down the heart of the stone, but it was a little difficult to see in the Gem’s present condition.

“It’s cracked through,” Ruby observed aloud, sombre.

“Just about,” Yang agreed, brushing the tip of her finger against the intact lower edge of the Gemstone. A narrow, jagged fissure ran across it diagonally from the upper-right edge, a little chip missing from the point where the crack began.

“Why would you build a Gemstone into a book, though? What would that even do?” Ruby wondered.

Yang opened the book carefully, moreso than Ruby had expected from her, and showed her the pages. They weren’t paper, weren’t even flexible at all, but were instead thin plates of a greenish-grey-brown material with a strange sheen to it.

“Mica,” Weiss identified, frowning. Yang nodded.

“I think they’ve been treated somehow to make them stronger, but yeah. The covers are petrified wood. This whole book is made of stone.”

“And it’s supposed to be a…record?” Ruby turned that over in her brain. “A Record.”

“Information set in stone,” Weiss mused.

“And powered by one, for some reason.”

Ruby turned and banished the display over Glynda’s terminal, and Yang stepped past her to set the Record down. Ruby and Weiss crowded around her as she carefully turned the delicate, almost see-through pages, eyes skimming over the glyphs embossed in gleaming gold.

“Most of this looks like it’s probably about the Gem War,” she said. “Big surprise, right?”

“Could you be a little more specific?” Weiss asked dryly.

“Ease up, Weissy. This isn’t exactly _Pumpkin Pete’s Big Day._ I’ll let you know if anything jumps out at me. So far I haven’t even seen a _name,_ just the symbol for Beacon and a bunch of different Gem types.”

“Gem types are easy to recognise, right?” Ruby prompted. “Do you know the symbol for Rose Quartz?”

“Sure do, but depending on how old the Record is, Summer might not be the only Rose Quartz mentioned,” Yang pointed out. “Good idea, though. If I focus on the glyphs for Gem types, that might give us some clues to what’s going on.”

She went back to the beginning, skimming the pages faster this time now that she knew what she was looking for. “Lotta mentions of a Bismuth. Same one, I think. Ditto an Agate…a ‘Near-Perfect’ Agate? …Oh, I bet that’s ‘white’, actually. First Rose Quartz name-drop… _dah dah-dah dah-dah…_ ”

“Why _doesn’t_ this thing use actual names, or Homeworld ID codes?” Ruby asked, a new thought occurring to her. “It had to have been written down by someone in the Rebellion, so why wouldn’t they have made it clear who they were writing about?”

“That’s actually a really good question,” Yang muttered, frowning a little herself now.

“That’s bad record-keeping, _that’s_ what it is,” Weiss said decisively, crossing her arms.

“Flip to the last page,” Ruby urged. “Let’s see if we can figure out where it stops.”

Lacking a better idea, Yang acquiesced, slipping her fingers under a stack of glassy pages and turning them gently over, flicking to the last few pages left before finally finding one with blank space left on it. The next several pages were blank as well.

“Here it is,” she declared—and a new glyph etched itself onto the page before her. “Whoa!”

“How is that happening?” Weiss whispered, watching as three more symbols appeared.

“Is _this_ what the Gemstone’s for?” Ruby wondered. “The Record writes itself!”

“But what’s it writing _now?”_

“Us,” Yang said, stunned, watching as the last of the new symbols flickered between two different shapes. “I’m an Ametrine,” she told the Record in a curiously soft tone, and the glyph shuddered for a moment before re-forming an entirely new shape which combined elements of the two it had been torn between. “See? That’s its name for me now. And there’s _almost-perfect organic-sapient—_ which should be _white human_. _”_

Ruby glanced over at Weiss long enough to see her spitefully mouth the words ‘almost-perfect’ to herself, looking rather insulted.

“It thinks you’re human too, Rubes,” Yang said. “And…I don’t think it understands how names work, or it would at least be using the same nicknames I have, right?”

“Computers only understand inputs they’ve been told the meaning of. I think.” Ruby tilted her head. “Maybe it’s like that?”

“But it knows what Gems are,” Weiss argued. “So why does it call you a human? It could put two ideas together to make _Ametrine,_ so why can’t it squish _Rose Quartz_ into— _organic-sentient_ or whatever?”

“Because it understands how Gem types work,” Ruby said slowly, “but human-plus-Gem doesn’t make sense to it. So it’s going off the fact that I’m organic and calling me human.”

Yang was still watching their conversation unfold on the Record’s pages. “It hesitated,” she said suddenly, reclaiming the girls’ attention. “When it wrote the symbol it’s using for Ruby? It _hesitated._ It didn’t do that before. I don’t think it’s just recording what we say.”

“It’s… _learning?”_ Weiss breathed.

“Like an AI?” Ruby suggested. “Like Jinn? That must be how it’s understanding us even though we’re speaking Valean!”

Slowly, Yang eased the book closed and stared at the Gemstone embedded on its cover. “It’s not an AI. A broken Gemstone can’t hold an AI. If it could, it’d still…it’d still be _alive.”_

The word fell into the room, heavy yet strangely delicate, not unlike the Record itself.

 _Not_ it _self,_ Ruby realised with rising horror. _Himself? Herself? Themself?_

“There’s a _person_ in there?” Weiss managed at last, her voice cracking right at the end.

Ruby lifted her chin. “Not for long. Operation: Why Is There A Garden In The Basement Only My Dog Can Get Into is officially on hold until we get whoever’s stuck in there out!”

Yang shot her a look. “I thought we agreed on Operation: Crown Jewels? ’Cause of the crown emblem. And we’re jewel-people.”

“Half of us are jewel-people,” Weiss corrected her. “Exactly half, actually.”

“Guys! I’m trying to be righteous! There is justice to be done!”

“Wrongs to be righted, innocents to be saved, great.” Weiss folded her arms. “But are we _sure_ this is an innocent? What if this is a _Homeworld_ Gem, you know, like the ones that tried to _wipe out my entire species?”_

“Is _this_ any less wrong if they are?” Yang countered. “Would _you_ want to be stuck in some book that’s been locked away for thousands of years?”

“Of course not! I’m just as appalled as you are! But I want to _live,_ too, and if whoever’s in there comes out guns blazing—!”

“They’re _hurt!_ We don’t even know if they’ll be in any shape to _move,_ let alone fight us!”

“Ugh! Ruby, would you _please_ back me…up…here _what_ are you doing?”

Ruby had stepped directly in front of the Record now that Yang was occupied staring down Weiss, opening the front cover and eyeing the back of it consideringly. There was a thin metal plate affixed to the petrified wood on the reverse of where the Gemstone was set on the outside. “I think this is where it’s attached,” she said, pointing. “If I can pry it off, the stone should fall right out.”

“So we’re just doing this?” Weiss demanded.

“Were we ever going to leave someone in trouble behind?” Ruby asked her, meeting her eyes.

Weiss shifted uncomfortably, looking away. “…No. Of course we weren’t.”

Ruby nodded and made a clicking noise with her tongue. “Zwei! Come here! I need my toolkit!”

“Ruby, your dog is not a _purse.”_

“Nah, he’s got _way_ better storage capacity,” Yang pointed out, grinning and punching her fists together. “Alright, jailbreak time!”

* * *

Yang couldn’t help bouncing a little on the balls of her feet, anxious and impatient as Ruby dug at the metal plate with a flathead screwdriver while Weiss held the cover steady, parallel with the surface of the desk. All around the Record were strewn the contents of Zwei’s floof, Ruby’s organisational system apparently having gone a little out of whack since she’d first put it into place. “You sure you don’t need any help?”

“We’d _ideally_ like to still be able to read the Record when we’re done,” Weiss drawled, “so, no.”

“I— _oof_ —I got this, Yang,” Ruby assured her, the screwdriver once again slipping out of place with a sharp scraping sound. “I’ve got some Gem strength too, remember? Not as weedy as I look!”

“We’d have to call you Ruby _Wild_ Rose Quartz if you were—” at which Weiss yanked the tennis ball off the tip of Summer’s sword and chucked it at Yang’s head. The Ametrine ducked, and Zwei took off barking, cutting a wide angle around her and charging after the ball.

“Hey, that was a pretty good shot!” Yang said, a little surprised. Who knew Miss Priss Not-Quite-Heiress had a decent arm? Or decent aim, for that matter?

Weiss sniffed. “Missed my target,” was all she said as she returned both hands to the Record’s cover. “Sorry about that, Ruby.”

“Don’t _I_ get an apology? I’m the one you threw stuff at.”

“You deserved it.”

Yang made a face; inwardly, she felt like laughing. Even before she’d warmed up to the girl, she’d known Weiss was good people—a mirror image of one of the best people Yang had ever known, in fact. On the surface, the comparison was ridiculous, but Weiss reminded her of Qrow: all prickles until you knew your way around. Irritable, temperamental, almost as nasty to the people they liked best as to the people they most despised. Pessimistic. Prone to throwing things at Yang. And of course, completely unable to be mean to Ruby for more than five minutes at a time without melting like a marshmallow.

“Oh!” Ruby exclaimed. “I think it’s moving! Yang, put something down to catch the stone—I don’t want them to hit the glass!”

“Uh…” Yang looked around, but didn’t see anything suitable. Finally she stepped up and slipped her own open hand beneath the cover, giving a little shrug when Ruby looked up at her. “Better than nothing, right?”

On her other side, Weiss snorted, but said nothing. Ruby braced her palm against the end of the screwdriver, muscles visibly straining as she dug the tip in and levered out hard. Weiss had to lean her whole weight back to counterbalance the force. Then there was a loud _pop!_ , a _clang!_ as the plate went flying, a clamour of thuds and yelps as Ruby and Weiss both hit the floor, and the warm, solid weight of a Gemstone dropping into Yang’s hand. She caught the cover before it could fall on the damaged stone, easing the book closed again. The round hole now in its cover perfectly framed the large, golden glyph for _Record_ on the first page.

“Hey there,” Yang said gently to the Gemstone cupped in her hands. “Can you hear me? You’re free now.”

“It’s safe if you want to re-form,” Ruby added, using the desk to pull herself up. “There’s just three of us, and we don’t have weapons out.”

“Wow!” Weiss whispered harshly, glaring at Ruby as she eased herself off the floor. “Why not just say ‘you could take us _easy,_ we won’t fight back, we promise’?”

Ruby stuck out her tongue, prompting Weiss to roll her eyes.

“They won’t be fully aware in there. Just getting the gist.” Yang turned away from the desk, holding the cracked Gemstone out from her body. “There’s room for you now,” she told it. “I bet you’ve been planning your new form for a long time. Don’t you wanna show it off?”

“Maybe they’re too damaged to reform,” Weiss suggested when nothing happened.

Ruby’s eyes widened. “Can that happen?”

“Yeah, but it’s rare,” Yang said, bringing the stone closer again to inspect it. “By the time you’re too banged up to form a body, you’re as good as shattered anyway. There’d be pieces missing. I don’t even feel a crack on the back of the stone; it’s just on this side.”

“So they’re not in as bad of shape as we thought.”

“They still need healing, though.” Ruby looked up at Yang. “Maybe we should take them to Haven.”

“Lionheart would call Ozpin in a heartbeat,” Yang pointed out. “What’re the odds Mr. Better-Safe-Than-Sorry just slaps a bubble around them and chews me out for not doing it myself?”

“You don’t know he’d do that!”

_Cold amber eyes stared her down, the cliffs of the Kindergarten high around them. An armoured boot on her chest, pinning her to the ground. A painfully-tight grip on her wrist, forcing her arm straight up, her Gemstone exposed. His weapon was poised above her eye, ready to swiftly discorporate her, but that could change in an instant._

“I don’t know he _wouldn’t,_ either!” Yang cupped her hands tighter around the Gemstone, protective. “Even _Weiss_ wasn’t sure about this, remember?”

“Hey! I never wanted to leave the stone in the book,” Weiss insisted. “I just didn’t want you two jumping to the rescue without thinking about the consequences!”

Yang opened her mouth to argue. “You—!” Then she cut herself off. Took a deep breath. “Sorry,” she said finally. “I just don’t like the idea of helping someone out and then locking them right back up again. If we wait for them to re-form and _then_ take them to Haven, they stand a better chance of staying free.”

“Which might be a bad thing, if they’re holding a six-thousand-year-old grudge and decide we’re enemy combatants.” Weiss crossed her arms.

Ruby closed her eyes briefly, thinking. “Okay. We’ll give them a little longer, see if they even _can_ re-form. If they don’t, we’ll go to Haven and see if they can help—and Ozpin will have to go through all of us if he _does_ want to be a jerk about it. Right, Weiss?”

Weiss laughed incredulously, more of a splutter or a scoff than a real laugh. “What, do you want me to threaten legal action? Because that’s _literally_ the most I could do.”

“Then do that! Stare him down and call your lawyer! It’ll at least buy us time!”

Yang took in Ruby’s determined expression, her set shoulders and stubborn mouth. Remembered a rosy-hued hand on an armoured shoulder, cold fury calmed with gentle words. That same hand reaching down and helping her off the ground, dusting her off. What Summer could order, Ruby could only ask—but maybe that would be enough. And this time, Yang’s words would count for something, too.

“Okay,” Yang agreed. “Hear that?” she addressed the Gemstone she held. “We’ve got your back if you’ve got ours. So I’ll just set you down and when you’re ready to—”

The Gemstone flashed before floating up out of Yang’s grasp, a glow building from within it.

“Oh, okay.” Yang blinked. “Cool.”

“Ohmygosh this is so exciting!” Ruby squealed softly, waving clenched fists in the air.

“Just because I helped you do this doesn’t mean I don’t still have the right to say _I told you so_ if it all goes wrong!” Weiss said rapidly, shooting sharp looks at both of them before she, too, turned to watch the show.

The glow expanded from the Gemstone in all directions. White light dimmed through darkening shades of purple, then faded out entirely to reveal a feminine-looking Gem with richly-hued skin of deep violet, waves of black hair falling down her back. Her black top was cropped short, revealing the cracked Gemstone set in her navel. Fine cracks spiderwebbed a short distance over the area around the stone as well. A white coat, lined with dark lilac, covered most of the rest of her upper body, and Yang couldn’t suppress a grin. Maybe her days as the lone oasis of Gem style between Ozpin’s boring suit and Qrow’s floordrobe-chic were over.

As soon as the new Gem’s _very nice_ thigh-high boots hit the ground, though, she stumbled, tipping forward as her eyes flew open, wide and alarmed. Ruby and Weiss both reached out, but Yang was closer—and faster. She caught the Gem by her upper arms, steadying her. “Hey. You okay?”

The Gem tipped her head back to look at Yang, her expression wary. Unlike the dark tones of the rest of her body and most of her wardrobe, her eyes were a brilliant golden yellow, gleaming with the same chatoyancy as her Gemstone. Yang had half-expected the same elongated cat’s-eye effect, too, but the violet Gem’s pupils were rounded like her own, and the whites of her eyes were still, well, white. And she had plenty of time to look, because the Gem neither spoke nor moved, not even to shrug Yang’s hands away. She just maintained that distrustful stare. The large bow on top of her head should have diminished its impact, but somehow didn’t.

“Soooo,” Yang drawled at length, raising her eyebrows. “Come here often?”

“Yang, _no!”_ Ruby protested from behind her, almost drowning out Weiss’s groan of “Oh my _gods.”_

“No,” the Gem said flatly. “I don’t leave often, either.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess you…wouldn’t. With the whole…”

“The whole imprisonment thing,” the other Gem finished dryly.

“Yup. Yeah.” Yang cleared her throat awkwardly. “That.”

A particularly pointy elbow jabbed her in the ribs, snapping Yang out of it. She released the Gem and took a step back as Weiss took over. “Sorry about that, she’s…Yang. We’re working on it.”

“Hey,” Yang objected. Ruby patted her on the arm consolingly.

The new Gem looked Weiss up and down, brow wrinkling into a frown. “Where is your Gemstone?”

Weiss frowned right back. “I’m human,” she said. “Didn’t you know that already? The Record said—”

“The _Record_ isn’t _me,”_ the Gem said with no small amount of venom, taking Weiss off-guard if the way she stepped back was anything to go by. “You aren’t the ones who discorporated me,” she said, glancing at Yang and Ruby. “Who are you? Rebels? Is that why you’re with an organic?”

“A _human,”_ Weiss specified, rather testily, “and I have a name. It’s Weiss.”

 _“Names,”_ the Gem spat, backing away. “You _are_ with the Rebellion!” Her eyes darted around. “This is your base, isn’t it!? Beacon—that _Agate—!”_

Her gaze locked on Ruby. “That cloak! You’re an _officer!”_

“No! I’m really not!” Ruby held up her hands placatingly. “Please listen to us—we let you go!”

The Gem scoffed. “After locking me up in the first place!”

“That wasn’t us!” Weiss insisted. “Ruby and I didn’t even _exist_ when you were locked away!”

“Neither did I, if it was back in the war,” Yang said. “Hey, just calm down. None of us want to hurt you. We just want to talk this out, okay? Hey—what’s your designation? Mine’s—” She caught herself. “Ametrine. I don’t know my ID code. Sorry.”

The Gem looked her over. “Off-colour,” she said, her voice softening just slightly. A strange bitterness underlaid her words. “They probably stripped your record. I’m surprised you weren’t shattered on emergence.”

“Just lucky, I guess,” Yang said blithely, flashing a grin as she swallowed the instinctive dread. It had been centuries before she’d learned Homeworld’s policy on Gems like her. She’d never met a Remnan Gem who cared that she hadn’t come out factory-default, but it was still a heavy thing to think about.

“Scapolite,” the new Gem said abruptly. “Black Scapolite, Facet 3, Cut 7RB.”

“Scapolite,” Yang repeated, letting her grin soften into a genuine smile. “I’ve never met a Scapolite before.”

“If you’re telling me the Rebellion won the war, I’m not surprised,” Scapolite said, sounding subdued; Yang wouldn’t say she was _relaxed,_ exactly, but she was winding back from the high alert she’d been at earlier. “How long has it been?”

“More than five thousand years,” Ruby said quietly. Scapolite closed her eyes.

“How could this happen?” she murmured, as if to herself.

“It was before my time,” Yang admitted. “No one really talks about it, since most of the Gems on Remnant were around to see it, but somehow we chased off Homeworld’s forces, got them to leave us alone.” She was pretty sure that was how it had happened, anyway. She’d emerged more than a millennium after the war’s end; no one had been eager to talk about the aftermath of the battle in Forever Fall, and as it hadn’t mattered, she hadn’t pressed. The bad guys were gone, and Remnant was safe. Why pick at old wounds just for the sake of a few fine details?

“The Diamond Authority just _left_ a viable colony world?” Disbelief was clear on Scapolite’s face. “Without even shattering the Last Rose?”

“Rose…Quartz?” Yang’s gaze darted towards Ruby. “The Rebel leader?”

Scapolite nodded.

“She’s…” Ruby began, swallowing hard. “She’s gone too. _I’m_ the last Rose Quartz on Remnant now. Sort of, anyway. That’s why I have this cloak.”

Scapolite immediately focused in on Ruby, frowning. “Your colouring’s wrong. Too red. Not red _enough_ to be _her.”_

“I’m only part Gem,” Ruby explained. “I’m, uh, part organic. Human. My name’s Ruby?” She smiled awkwardly.

There was a long pause.

“I didn’t understand any of that,” Scapolite announced.

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Ruby mumbled, looking down. “Listen, Scapolite, we’re not… _really_ part of the Rebellion, but the Rebellion _did_ win the Gem War. This world—we call it Remnant, and Gems and organics live here together. We don’t have a caste system. We just _live._ It’s peaceful and it’s safe. Mostly safe. I guess nowhere’s _completely_ safe, but—that’s not the point.”

“Nothing you’re saying makes any sense.” Scapolite shook her head emphatically. “First you claim to be some impossible hybrid lifeform, and now you’re telling me this _chaos_ you’re describing is _peaceful?_ And even you can’t pretend it’s really safe! I don’t—”

Zwei barked suddenly from beside her and Scapolite _screamed,_ the sound cutting off quickly as she leapt back, away from the source of the noise. She stared down at Zwei, frozen, as the corgi wiggled his stubby tail and nosed the tennis ball towards her. Scapolite squeaked and backed up a few steps more to prevent the ball from hitting the toe of her boot.

 _“What is that?”_ she demanded, high-pitched and strangled.

“That’s Zwei,” Ruby said hurriedly, rushing forward and scooping him up. “He’s a dog. Just a normal Remnant animal! Ignore the pink!”

Immediately, Weiss pointed at her. _“Aha!_ You _admitted_ he’s pink! No take-backs!” Then she went pink herself, lowering her arm. “Uh. Not that…that matters.”

Scapolite looked back and forth between them, shaking slightly, clearly overwhelmed.

“Guys, maybe take it down a notch?” Yang suggested, then grimaced. “Wow, that felt _so_ wrong coming out of my mouth. I’m sorry, Scapolite, I know this has gotta be—”

“Just!” Scapolite held up her hands, forestalling anything further. “Just let me think. Please. If you really want to help me, just let me _think.”_

“Okay,” Ruby said before Yang could object, setting Zwei down and shooing him towards the doorway. “Okay. We’ll just be over by the door, okay? Let us know when you’re ready to talk. Take your time.”

Scapolite didn’t reply. Ruby took Yang by the arm and steered her around to face Weiss. A hand on the human girl’s back ensured Ruby could march them both across the room towards the doorway, where Zwei was already sitting and watching them. It wasn’t much space, but short of leaving Scapolite alone in the office, it was the best they could do.

“She does _not_ sound like a fan of your family’s politics,” Weiss said bluntly, speaking low to avoid being overheard. “Which, last I checked, means she’s not a fan of the fact that there’s anything but Gems alive anywhere on the entire planet!”

“She’s one Gem,” Ruby said. “Even if she felt _that_ strongly about it—and I don’t think she does—what could she do? Not every Gem on Remnant was with the Rebellion, but that doesn’t mean they were happy with Homeworld, either. Or the _‘Diamond Authority’?”_

“Homeworld’s rulers,” Yang explained, and Ruby nodded understanding.

“Thought so.”

“So we’re counting on the fact that she’s outnumbered?” Weiss didn’t look too happy with that. “What are we even hoping will happen here?”

“We want to get her to Haven so she can be healed,” Ruby said, counting points off on her fingers. “We want to show her that she doesn’t have to be scared of Remnant just because she doesn’t understand how it works, and we want her to find somewhere she can be happy.”

“We’ve really only got a handle on Step One,” Yang realised, disheartened.

“I’m kind of hoping the other steps just work out from there, actually,” Ruby admitted. “Or at least buy us some time to think.”

“Something we could all use,” Weiss sighed, glancing over Yang’s shoulder towards Scapolite. “— _Aaaand_ she’s gone.”

“What?” But Yang was already turning. The Record had vanished off Glynda’s desk. Scapolite had vanished from in front of it. And the window was wide open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today you have all learned a valuable lesson about trusting me when I say anything that isn’t at least 80% self-deprecation but hey who cares because Our Lady of Ninja Catgirls the great and magnificent Blake is here in all her sullen glory! Felt so good to be able to add her to the character tags. Like finding the last edge piece in a jigsaw puzzle.
> 
> I’m also really proud of myself for coming up with the Record?? I mean, the Blake-book connection is obvious, but that isn’t actually the main reason. Hint: location is a big clue. Points to anyone who knows what I was getting at! I mean, I’ll explain in the notes for next chapter anyway because I have a terrible compulsion to explain my process regardless of whether anyone actually cares, but y’know.
> 
> So yeah apparently next time is gonna kinda-sorta be Ocean Gem then. I’m maybe halfway through its climactic fight scene? So far so good but I can feel it creeping longer and l o n g e r and like. Yeah. See you then! Thanks for reading!


	10. Threat Assessment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scapolite's on the run, and Ruby and Yang are in pursuit. Monsters, mayhem, and a light sprinkling of existential angst inevitably follow. Welcome back to your irregularly-scheduled showing of RWBY but half the cast are Gems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay getting this out--I unexpectedly wound up back at work at something pretty close to my old schedule, which has cut into my free time and energy considerably. Apparently adding me back into the staff rotation flipped a switch in my boss's boss's head that said 'yea we can just go back to normal business hours now' and it also turns out my job is a lot physically harder than I remember it being, which sounds ridiculous but goddamn am I beat.  
> tl;dr pretty much everything from the second run-like-crazy sequence on got written like. two paragraphs at a stretch while I spent the rest of my time staring in blank confusion at the blinky-blink of the input marker. Wasn't slacking. Just exhausted.
> 
> Anyway, it's here now, one healthy dose of Cliffhanger-B-Gone with a side of Plot Progression. Enjoy!

The three of them barrelled towards the window, Zwei hot on their heels. Yang collided with the sill in her haste, gripping onto it and poking her head outside as best she could.

“There!” Weiss pointed. A dark shape was rappelling swiftly down the tower, dangerous and ingenious—Scapolite, apparently, had a weapon, some sort of angular blade on a long ribbon-like cord, reminiscent of a kusarigama. As Yang watched, she hooked it over the sill of a window further down the tower, leapt down a storey with the ribbon in hand, and then repeated the process, angling her jumps as necessary to find a new anchor point. There was no hesitation in her descent, each jump fluid and natural.

“Oh my _god,_ she’s a ninja!” Yang couldn’t help but grin, momentarily distracted from her worries by sheer delight. “Look at that! She’s _awesome!”_

“Scapolite, wait!” Ruby yelled. Scapolite looked up, glancing at Ruby then Weiss and finally locking eyes with Yang. She mouthed something. Then she flung herself away again, unanchored this time. Weiss gasped, covering her mouth.

“No, she’s okay!” Ruby realised. Scapolite had thrown her improvised grappling hook wide as she fell, hooking it over the strut of the nearest flying buttress. She swung beneath it and vanished from sight. “Okay.” The hybrid drew back from the window. “We can still catch up. The warp can only take her to Patch and back, and if she goes there we’ll have Qrow and Ozpin and maybe Dad to help us find her.”

Scapolite came back into view on the ground, racing away from Beacon Tower at an impressive speed, shifting between grappling swings and a flat run without ever faltering.

“Well, she’s not going toward the warp,” Weiss observed. “It looks like she’s heading for that cliff, and she’s covering a lot of ground.”

Ruby squeezed back in to look. “Even better! She’ll be stuck on campus because of the forcefield. We’ve got this!”

“She’s not stopping!” Weiss reported.

“Yang? What happens if she hits the field?”

“She bounces off.” Yang knew that for a fact. She’d volunteered to field-test _(ha!)_ the forcefield when it first went up. “Kinda feels like running into a sideways trampoline. Doesn’t even hurt.”

Scapolite hit the field. It shimmered, growing more opaque at the point of impact. Scapolite flickered—

Vanished—

And phased right through to the other side, flinging her weapon point-down into the ground and leaping over the cliff into the Emerald Forest. The kusarigama vanished a moment later, tugged away by its wielder.

Silence reigned inside the abandoned office.

“Does _anything,”_ Ruby began, viciously soft, “in this _entire academy_ ACTUALLY _WORK AS INTENDED!?”_

Her shriek rebounded off the walls, causing Zwei to whine and fold down his ears. Yang and Weiss stared at Ruby with wide eyes. She was breathing hard. They looked at each other instead.

“Maybe this is for the best?” Weiss tried, sounding unconvinced. “At least she’s free now.”

“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone _jump_ off Beacon Cliff,” Yang said, still a little too shocked to appreciate even her own humour. “Usually that’s where you get…thrown…”

 _Oh._ _Oh no._

“To the monsters.” Yang felt ice in the pit of her stomach. “None of us told her about the monsters. She doesn’t know there are monsters in there!”

“She was trapped before the war ended,” Ruby realised, anger giving way to horror. “She wouldn’t know about the Corruption! She has no idea what she’s getting into!”

“And she’s already injured,” Weiss finished grimly.

Yang remembered the anguished look on Scapolite’s face before she’d dropped out of view, the words her mouth had formed as she met Yang’s gaze: _I can’t._

“Not alone,” she whispered, unconsciously clenching her fists.

“Yang?”

“She won’t make it alone,” Yang said louder, looking up at Ruby. “We have to help her. There’s a warp in an old ruined temple in the forest. We can catch up with her from there!”

Ruby nodded. “Right!” She looked to Weiss. “Are you going to be okay here on your own?”

“Well—I—” Weiss looked to the window, then the desk, and finally down at the ground. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I’ll be fine.”

Ruby’s face fell to see her so subdued, but she nodded again. “Okay. We’ll be back as soon as we can—hopefully with Scapolite. Zwei, stay here!” she ordered, heading for the door. Zwei barked and sat at Weiss’s feet.

Yang followed Ruby, but she couldn’t help a last glance back at Weiss. The girl was still staring at her feet. She’d wrapped her arms around her stomach tightly.

“I’d never let anything bad happen to her,” Yang said. “You know that, right?”

Weiss’s head snapped up. She must not have expected Yang would still be there. “I know,” she said. “Don’t let anything happen to you, either.”

“Aw.” Yang grinned. “I knew you liked me.” She tossed a wink and a smart salute Weiss’s way as she wheeled around and charged out the door in Ruby’s wake. She could hear Weiss shouting after her, audibly peeved.

_“Don’t read into it!”_

* * *

Scapolite threw her weapon again, looping the ribbon over a sturdy-looking branch of the tree across from her present perch and pulling it fast. It would have been faster to just _run,_ but she didn’t want to risk leaving a trail for her pursuers to find. Assuming she even had pursuers. It was an assumption Scapolite’s training insisted she make, and if she really _was_ the last Homeworld Gem standing, she had no reason not to make it.

She tamped down a surge of frustration as she swung to her chosen tree and picked out her next destination, spinning the kusarigama back up to speed. Scapolites weren’t _soldiers._ She’d already _done_ her job before the war ever broke out! The only reason she’d still been on this stupid planet was because her services hadn’t been needed elsewhere. Master Larimar had ordered her to assist one of Pink Diamond’s research teams and await further instructions, and then—

_Then—_

News of the unthinkable. A Gem uprising. Truthfully, Scapolite still had trouble wrapping her head around the idea that a Gem could be an enemy. There’d never been a rebellion before, after all—well, there were _rumours_ of other rebellions, but Homeworld had never mobilised for war against its own Gems and anyway there were any number of _less-_ ridiculous rumours Scapolite had always felt secure in ignoring. Who would dare turn against the perfection of the Diamonds, and why would they ever wish to?

 _We don’t have a caste system,_ the so-called hybrid ‘Ruby’ reminded her. _We just_ live. _It’s peaceful and it’s safe._

Scapolite hesitated, the revolutions of her sickle slowing. She caught it out of the air and banished it back to her Gemstone, wincing slightly at the feel of it—the crack hadn’t made it impossible to access her subspace pocket, but it was no longer an effortless process. Slowly, she reached behind her, undoing the buckle on her coat’s belt and retrieving the Record from its place at the small of her back. She stared down at it, uncertain what she felt at the sight of her former prison.

She remembered the chaos that broke out one day in Pink Diamond’s temple, the rapidly-spreading rumour that She had been _shattered._ Yet another rumour she hadn’t believed at the time, but which she now supposed must have been true; no Diamond would allow Her own colony to slip through Her fingers. Scapolite and the other sceptics had been the minority, though, especially when the Rebellion’s assault team swept through. She’d been caught up in the panicked stampede, even her trained senses and mind unequal to the task of truly observing in the pandemonium, and so she didn’t know who or what had discorporated her and cracked her Gemstone. Just that it had _hurt._

A lot.

Then came the void. A dim, murky haze of _nothing_ surrounding what she’d thought was her body, her only sensations the throbbing pain in her Gemstone and the sound of her own frantic voice fading to nothing in the distance. It had been a relief when she’d finally slipped into a half-daze, her consciousness a barely-there flicker on the edge of an empty ocean. Time ceased to matter, ceased to _exist,_ until everything changed. Until the voices that floated to her across the sea, until the warmth that cradled her and seeped into her, until impressions of _safe_ and _free_ and _friend_ washed over her and she swam at last to shore, following the light and heat, the promise of shelter.

Until she stumbled into the gentle grip of a Gem who spoke in a language Scapolite didn’t know she knew, and the universe welcomed her back.

She couldn’t trust them, Ametrine and the diminutive thing who claimed to be the Last Rose, much less their organic—whatever ‘Weiss’ was. It was Scapolite’s task to assess how easily creatures like her would go down, to pass the information she gathered on to other units whose job it was to prime entire organic species for extinction. She couldn’t trust a target, no matter how eerily civilised she seemed. Diamonds’ eyes, Scapolite had honestly mistaken her for a Gem at first glance, poised and articulate and a single colour from head to toe! Even now, Scapolite’s training was failing her—she caught herself consistently thinking of Weiss with pronouns reserved for Gems. ‘Her’ and ‘she’ instead of ‘it’. Ametrine had thrown her off, treating her companions as equals, treating _Scapolite_ as an equal when the Quartz’s defect placed her well below Scapolite in the hierarchy.

She found herself frowning. ‘Defect’. It didn’t really… _feel_ right. Not that the way things _felt_ mattered, of course, but Ametrine hadn’t looked flawed to her. A clean sun-yellow with startling purple eyes—not the one-hued colour palate a well-formed Quartz should present, but Scapolite couldn’t help seeing a shades-paler mirror of her own colouration. Scapolite had thought perhaps she was an odd-looking Fluorite until she’d introduced herself. Nothing about Ametrine had told Scapolite she was something she ought to pity and despise. And she—and the sort-of Gem who couldn’t decide if she was a Ruby or a Rose Quartz—and even Weiss, if only by her silence!—they had seemed so earnest in their efforts to be…

Scapolite struggled to find the word she wanted in her native tongue. Cautious? Ethical? Helpful? _Kind,_ her mind supplied, a word from the new language the Record seemed to have given her. And _patient,_ which echoed a Gem word referring to one’s willingness to bide one’s time, but felt somehow softer and warmer, like the softness and warmth that had called her out of her long and weary stasis. They had been kind, and patient, and Scapolite had fled from them.

 _I didn’t have a choice,_ she reminded herself. _There’s no in-between, not with Homeworld and not with the Rebellion. What else was I supposed to do? Betray the Authority? Give up on ever going home again?_ She’d been imprisoned on this world, this _Remnant,_ as the Rose entity called it, for longer than she’d ever been aware. She’d spent over half her life locked away. As long as she stayed here, would she ever really be free?

At least one good thing had come from her captivity. Scapolite might not have been conscious during her time serving as the Record’s processing core and power source, but she knew what it was, what it had been made to do. If there was a way off-world, the Record knew about it, and once she was safely away from Beacon, Scapolite would see what it had to say for itself. She’d spent enough time wool-gathering. It was time to—wait. What was that noise?

Suddenly a great impact shook the tree in which she perched, a violent upheaval that had Scapolite scrambling for purchase against its rough bark with one hand, the other clutching the Record to her chest. But then there was a slow, mighty _crrrrrack!_ and the entire tree pitched forward. The feeling of sudden weightlessness overwhelmed her, mind momentarily lost in confusion as _up_ and _down_ switched places and left her utterly disoriented.

She hit the ground back-first, unable to recover in time, and heard a short, sharp scream. She slammed her jaw shut and bit her lip as she realised the sound had been startled right out of her, but there was no time to wallow in embarrassment. Not with the monstrous, hulking creature towering over her, one massive paw raised to strike. She rolled out of the way just as the blow impacted the ground where she’d been lying, leaving a small crater behind.

Yes. It was official. Remnant was the absolute _worst._

* * *

Yang was already off and running as they materialised on the Emerald Forest warp, gauntlets summoned and ready.

“Yang, wait!” Ruby hollered after her. “You don’t even know where you’re going!”

“Back towards Beacon!” Yang called back. “She’s fast, but not _that_ fast!”

Ruby took to running, only struggling a little to keep pace behind the Gem. “You could scout from above!”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure a big freaking _dragon_ wouldn’t scare her off!”

Right. Yang could make herself bigger, but had trouble shrinking herself down. Most Gems did, apparently, their Gemstones accustomed to projecting them at a certain size even if they learned to coax themselves into different shapes; Qrow’s level of control over his shifted forms was incredibly rare. Yang didn’t _have_ to turn into something as fantastical as a dragon, but whatever she became would still be at least human-sized, bright yellow or gold, and purple-eyed.

_Maybe that’s why Ozpin never shapeshifts. What could he even pass for?_

She indulged in a breathless snort of laughter as she envisioned an alligator in spectacles and a scarf, then broke down into petals and surged forward to draw level with Yang before settling back into her body. Black boots and brown pounded the forest’s loose soil in perfect sync.

“Should we split up?” she suggested.

If Yang replied, Ruby never heard it, a sharp, familiar scream echoing through the forest.

“Scapolite!” Yang immediately angled towards the sound, not hesitating for an instant. She was faster now, too, faster than Ruby was on foot, so Ruby let herself dissolve again, reaching out with phantom limbs and enfolding Yang, lifting her easily. Gems had a weird relationship with mass—they could plant their feet and stand firm against a windstorm, and they felt solid and sturdy to the touch, but as Yang let her muscles go slack she felt nearly weightless in Ruby’s grasp.

She thought Yang might have tried to say something, but the wind streaming past them ripped the words away. It clearly wasn’t a complaint, though, as she made no effort to escape the slipstream. Not until Ruby saw Scapolite and hit the brakes, Yang propelling herself free of the cloud of petals before Ruby could even begin to try and re-form. The Gem let the momentum fling her towards the monster looming over Scapolite’s prone and scrambling form. She pulled back her elbows and fired shotgun blasts from her gauntlets, letting that be her battle cry. Certainly it was the only warning the ursine monster had of her approach, flames blooming over its pelt before Yang herself barrelled into it fists-first, sending it reeling back with a bellow.

“Are you okay?” Ruby asked, materialising next to Scapolite as she struggled upright, hugging the Record to her chest with one hand.

“What are you _doing_ here?” the Gem hissed. She knelt on the ground now, tucking the Record behind her and buckling it into place on her belt. “I’m not going back! No matter _what_ you send after me!”

“What we—?” Ruby looked over at the tussle between Yang and the bear-monster. “Hey, if we sicced a monster on you, why is Yang fighting it, huh?”

“I’m the one who assessed this planet’s potential for macro-scale bioweapons— _that_ is not something that happened naturally!” Scapolite pointed at the monster accusingly as she got to her feet, backing away from Ruby. “You expect me to believe that’s not a Rebel weapon!?”

“Scapolite, _look!”_ Ruby demanded. “Look at its chest! It’s a _Gem!”_

It hit her, finally, like a punch to the gut. She saw it hit Scapolite too, as she saw the dull green Gemstone set in the monster’s chest, where a normal bear might have markings. Horror crept across her dark face. The beast roared, swiping a heavy set of claws at Yang, who leaped nimbly away, firing at its feet. It roared again, falling forward onto all fours and lowering its head to charge.

“It’s a Gem,” Ruby repeated, “just like us. Only it’s been hurt and twisted into something that only wants to hurt everything else around it! Why would we mutilate our own kind and then trap ourselves on the planet with the monsters we made?”

“Anytime, guys!” Yang hollered. “Not that I don’t got this but…!”

“Are you saying the _Diamonds_ did this?” Scapolite shook her head, her eyes wide. “No. _No._ They made us for a purpose, _all_ of us! This doesn’t make _sense,_ this is unnatural, it—it—!”

“Who else _could_ have done it? When my mom and her army made Homeworld leave, _this_ is what they did before they left! They couldn’t have Remnant, so they made it as harsh and dangerous as possible for us—for everyone who calls this planet home!” Tears welled up in Ruby’s eyes. “They made sure we’d always have to fight just to survive. And this is _normal!_ This is the world Yang and Weiss and I grew up in! We came to find you because you didn’t, and none of us even thought to warn you what was waiting outside.”

“…Yang?” Scapolite echoed, looking up at the Ametrine; Yang jumped straight up in the air and grabbed hold of a sturdy branch, swinging her whole body and planting a two-booted kick directly in the bear monster’s face as it tried to rear up again. “So she does have a name…”

“Yeah, on second thought, don’t bother!” Yang yelled. “It’s running outta steam! No kill-stealing!”

“And a way with words,” Scapolite added dryly.

“Don’t say that to her face. She’ll start making puns to prove it.”

“What are ‘puns’?”

Ruby stared at her, and Scapolite flinched back, looking away.

“Oh! Sorry. They’re like jokes. Uh, word-play. Like…‘Hey, this monster’s a real _bear_ to fight!’ ’Cause it looks like a bear, and when something’s really challenging you say it’s…a bear…” She trailed off in the face of Scapolite’s incomprehension. “You know what, maybe you _should_ just talk to Yang. And never tell her I said the bear thing.”

 _“Hah!”_ Yang cried triumphantly, drawing their attention. She’d dropped onto the bear monster’s back and had her gauntlet braced at the base of its neck. One gauntlet fired, and the monster imploded with a final rumbling bellow. Yang dropped to the ground in a neat crouch, holding out a hand to catch the falling Gemstone. She looked up at her audience and grinned. “Nothin’ to it!”

“It was fairly impressive,” Scapolite allowed in a neutral one. She looked taken aback when Yang stuck out her tongue in reply. With a lazy twirl of her fingers, Yang bubbled the Gemstone in a globe of sparkling yellow energy and stood.

“I could’ve gotten fancier with it, but what’s the point of overcomplicating a 1v1? Come on. You know that was awesome.” The bubbled Gem vanished in a shimmer of light, Yang’s own Gemstone flashing.

“Just go with it,” Ruby muttered to Scapolite before raising her fists in the air, cheering. “All hail Yang, master of battle!”

“See, I know you’re making fun of me, but I ain’t even mad.” She put a hand on her hip and turned to Scapolite, smirking.

“Hail the slayer of monsters,” Scapolite intoned, managing a straight face for only a few seconds before her expression crumpled in bemusement and uncertainty.

“So, I know you said you weren’t coming back with us,” Ruby began carefully, “but it’s not safe out here, and we should really talk about everything that’s changed since you were locked up.”

“Why?” Scapolite appeared genuinely confused. “I’m not on your side. I’m—I don’t think I _have_ a side anymore. Why are you just _giving_ me sensitive information?”

“Don’t think of it as ‘sensitive information’,” Yang suggested. “Think of it as a tutorial to life on Remnant. We’re all in this together, right?”

“Are we?” Scapolite glanced between the two of them. “You found me imprisoned in a _Rebellion base._ Which means it was _Rebels_ who locked me up. I don’t know why, what I did, what they _thought_ I did—but I was their prisoner. _Your_ prisoner. And you want me to believe I can get a crash course on the last six millennia and go live my life, free and clear, just like that?”

“Yes,” Ruby said bluntly, nodding. “No one deserves to be trapped like you were. It’s not right.”

“We worked it out before you re-formed,” Yang said. “We’re not going to let you get locked up again. No matter what.”

Scapolite looked unconvinced, but there was something in her eyes that made Ruby think maybe she _wanted_ to believe them. She just wouldn’t let herself.

“Let’s at least walk back to the warp,” Ruby cajoled. “You can decide there, okay? And, I mean, you already proved you can get through Beacon’s barrier, so even if we do go back, we’d be more trapped than you would.”

It didn’t take long for Scapolite to decide, but it felt as though it did, Ruby’s loud but steady heartbeat echoing in her own ears for those tense few seconds.

“Okay,” Scapolite said at last. “Lead the way.”

Ruby beamed. “Great! It’s right…uh.” She looked around. “Huh.”

Yang quirked an eyebrow at her. “You don’t know.”

“I was in a hurry!” Ruby said defensively, crossing her arms.

“Lucky for you, I used to spend a lot of time here. Great place to burn off your aggression.” Yang made a circling gesture with her hand in the air, as if trying to lasso her companions as she walked off. “Come on. It’s this way.”

* * *

Scapolite was quiet on the walk back to the warp—lost in thought, Ruby figured, but then she noticed the way the Gem kept cocking her head and looking around.

“Do you hear something?” she asked softly. Yang half-turned her head from her spot in the lead, listening but saying nothing yet.

“I’m not sure,” Scapolite replied, frowning. “Rustling, overhead. It could just be the wind.”

“It doesn’t feel windy. But I guess the trees are thick enough it’d be hard to feel a breeze on the ground.” Ruby scanned the treetops. “I don’t see anything up there. Maybe it’s birds?”

“It’s not birds,” Yang said, quiet but grim. “I haven’t heard any birds since we ran into that bear monster.”

“The fight would have scared them off.”

“Yeah,” Yang agreed. “And then they should have come back. They haven’t. I didn’t really notice until you pointed it out, but it’s weird.”

Ruby’s steps slowed, but surprisingly Scapolite grabbed her elbow and pulled her along.

“If you’re being stalked, you keep moving,” she said tersely. “No faster, no slower. You don’t want to tip off a thinking predator or trigger the instincts of a primitive one.”

“Got it,” Ruby said shakily as Scapolite released her. “So you really are some kind of ninja-spy-person, huh?”

“I’m a Scapolite,” she said, as if that answered the question. It probably did, if you were familiar with Gem castes. “We’re recon specialists. My job was to assess the threat Remnant’s native population posed to the colonisation effort.”

“How much of a threat was that?”

Scapolite didn’t look at her. “None.”

The tension only mounted as they got closer to the warp, but although Ruby’s ears strained and her heart leapt with every crack and rustle and shift in the forest around her, nothing came of it. Maybe it really had been just the wind. Soon enough, the warp was in sight, the familiar plain white platform surrounded by collapsed pillars and lintels.

“We should be in the clear now, right?” Ruby asked.

“Let’s not taunt fate,” said Yang.

“Isn’t it ‘tempt fate’?”

“Not the way we do it,” the Ametrine said. Then she dived into a roll as a dark blur shot towards her from the treetops.

“Yang!” Ruby screamed, her next words lost in a startled cry as Scapolite shoved her out of the way of another attacker, the Gem leaping back and summoning her kusarigama. She spun it rapidly, taking aim at the monster who’d gone after Ruby, but then another beast lunged out of the canopy directly at her, forcing her to defend herself instead.

Ruby scrambled away from the monster—something like a large cat, a panther, which let out a horrible human-like scream as it pounced at her. She whisked herself away as a cloud of petals, re-forming with her rifle in hand and taking aim at it from above: the same trick that had served as her coup-de-grâce against Melanie.

Something crashed directly into her back, knocking the breath from her body. Her finger pulled the trigger reflexively, but her shot went wide and she went down, hard, the shot’s recoil spinning her so her left side slammed into the ground, jarring her shoulder and elbow. At least it also threw the monster, another panther-like creature, off of her, but now the other one was closing in and she couldn’t get her feet under her in time—

The monster jerked and shrieked as a silver, four-edged blade erupted from its chest, flames licking around the wound. Its body imploded, the faceted Gemstone on its forehead falling harmlessly to earth. Ruby met the narrowed pale-blue eyes of her saviour and felt her jaw drop.

“Come on!” Weiss urged, bending down and clasping her hand around Ruby’s wrist, pulling. Burn Dust still flickered over the blade of Summer’s sword, sparks of red and orange like dying embers. Ruby caught sight of the other monster charging towards them over Weiss’s shoulder, and her eyes widened, yanking hard on Weiss’s arm to pull her to the ground instead. The panther monster nearly impaled itself on the barrel of Ruby’s rifle as she brought it up quick as thought, pulling the trigger at point-blank range. It _poofed_ right out of existence before it had time to make a sound.

Weiss panted, staring wide-eyed at the corrupted Gemstone as it fell neatly beside the core of the monster she’d handled. “Thanks,” she managed faintly.

Then it was Ruby’s turn to grab hold of her, whirling away in petal form as more panther monsters dropped from the trees. She deposited them both next to Yang and Scapolite, who had dispatched their own opponents and were standing back to back, watching anxiously as the throng of enemies grew.

“How did we miss an entire pride of these things in our own front yard?” Yang wondered incredulously, glancing at them briefly. Then she did a double-take. “Wait, _Weiss!?”_

“Look, I felt bad about staying behind, okay?” Weiss snapped. “Zwei made me a portal.”

“The dog?” Scapolite asked, confused.

“Long story,” Ruby told her.

“I might not know much about fighting, but I’m in good shape and I _do_ know swords,” Weiss said in a rush. “So I thought if I could help even a little…!”

“Well hey!” Yang exclaimed, grinning. “Welcome to the party!”

“Does the party have an itinerary, by any chance?”

“Nah, we’re freestyling!”

“I was afraid of that,” Weiss sighed, eyeing the circling panther monsters grimly.

“Aw, feel the flow, Weiss!” Ruby chimed in. “We got this!”

“We are in _danger,”_ Scapolite enunciated loudly, looking at them all as if she didn’t know what to think. “You _do_ understand that?”

Weiss flushed. “O-of course we do! But joking about it is better than breaking down!”

“Hey, she gets it!” Yang cheered.

“One of us!” Ruby chanted. “One of us!”

 _“Idiots,”_ Weiss seethed, settling into a guard stance.

Scapolite shook her head, even as she spun her kusarigama. “You’re all crazy.”

“I think you mean _we,”_ Yang corrected her.

“One of us! One of us!”

“Ruby,” Weiss snapped, the point of her sword lowering as she looked over. That was all the opening the monsters needed, surging towards the weak point in their defenses.

“Crap! Run for it!” Yang shouted, turning tail and heading for the treeline.

Scapolite pivoted at once to sweep her weapon in a wide arc along their flank, guarding Yang’s back and buying herself time to follow her. Ruby gestured urgently for Weiss to go ahead as she willed her rifle into scythe form and mimicked Scapolite’s trick, Gem beasts flinching back and yowling from the broader no-man’s-land her larger blade created. Then she, too, joined the retreat.

“Where are we going?” she called ahead.

“Away!” Yang shot back.

“We need room to manoeuvre!” Scapolite’s voice was even and clear in a way Ruby hadn’t heard before. Even when she’d warned of the monsters stalking her, there’d been an uncertainty, a furtiveness to her rapid-fire bullet-points of advice, as if she wasn’t sure she should be speaking. She was focused now, no room left for nerves or second-guessing.

“We’re not going to _get_ more room than we had back there!” Weiss, on the other hand, sounded as if she had nerves to spare, tucked beneath a veneer of anger.

“At least we’re not surrounded anymore!” Yang raised a fist and fired straight up. A furious yowl followed the blast. It was only then that Ruby thought to look up.

“Oh, _crap.”_

Maybe half, maybe a little more of their pursuers were pounding the ground behind them, the leaders of the pack slowly but surely flanking the fleeing Huntresses, but the rest were leaping agilely through the treetops, and they were already overhead.

“Everyone stay close!” Ruby ordered, taking her scythe into a one-handed grip. She took as deep a breath as she could while running before raising her free hand to the sky, calling forth a compact shield that shimmered with rosy light, hovering a few inches over their heads. It didn’t reach the ground, didn’t even come close, and Ruby strained to keep it in place as the edges glanced off of the trees around them. She had to focus so intently that she wasn’t sure whose voice she heard next.

“Can you hold that?”

“Yup!” she wheezed. “Good to go!”

“I see more light ahead! I think the woods are thinning out!”

“‘Thinning out’?”

“More sun, less tree, open, good!”

“Yes, _thank you,_ Yang.”

“Ruby! We’re clear, we’re clear, drop the shield!”

She gasped in relief as she let it go, screwing her eyes shut briefly as the sun suddenly hit them full-bore. Blinking back tears, she turned her head to see the hulking shapes of the Gem panthers streaking after them, more and more leaping from the trees to join their brethren.

“We have to fight _all_ of them?” Weiss gasped.

“Seriously, _how_ are there that many this close to the city!?” Yang was clearly caught between two very different reactions—horrified and _pissed._ “We are _not_ that bad at our jobs!”

“I hooked one from a tree earlier and it just disappeared,” Scapolite reported. “It’s a small group making itself look bigger with holograms.”

“Hard light or—?”

“The one I got was.”

“So _they_ can all hurt us, but _we_ have no way of knowing which ones we need to hit! _Great.”_

Scapolite quirked an eyebrow at the fuming Ametrine. “I thought you liked a challenge?”

“Not when the challenge is _cheating!”_

“Well, we’re running out of ground!” Weiss announced, and sure enough when Ruby looked closer she realised the grass ended not far ahead. Perhaps a foot or so of craggy, exposed rock poked out into the open air and then nothing—empty space with a misty cliff in the distance. Yet another wound carved through Vale by ancient weapons or prehistoric glaciers or some combination of the two, in exactly the place they didn’t need it to be. “So do we have a plan, or…?”

 _Or,_ Ruby’s mind seized on the opening, was the crag they were racing towards exactly where they _did_ need it?”

“I have a plan!” she announced. “We cheat back!”

“Okay!?” Yang sounded baffled, but made no objections.

“You and Scapolite go right, circle like you’re trying to flank them!” Ruby ordered. “No, _now,_ I need you in position!”

“But—”

Scapolite grabbed Yang by the arm and broke off from the group without a word, towing the other Gem behind her for a pace or two before she got with the program.

“Weiss—what kind of Dust you got?”

“Uh, yes!” Weiss replied.

“All the Dust!” Ruby cheered. “Make me walls—solid, all the way to the edge of the cliff! Too high for the monsters to jump! Keep Yang and Scapolite on the outside!”

“I don’t know h—!” When Ruby glanced at Weiss’s exertion-flushed face, the human girl was twisting her mouth like she’d tasted something sour.

“Weiss?”

“I’m doing it! Just—work on a backup plan, okay!?”

Weiss pointed her sword in the direction Yang and Scapolite had gone, first, fiddling with the hilt until a stream of blue-white Dust shot down the blade, pouring from its point like twinkles from a magic wand. An impression not a bit belied when it reached the ground, coating it in a slick of ice. Weiss increased the Dust stream, but that only served to make the ice thicker, not build it up taller.

“It isn’t working!” she yelled, frustrated.

“I think it’ll still do the trick! Keep doing it! Make it wider!”

That, Weiss had no trouble figuring out how to do. The ice slick grew longer as they ran, and soon it was even speeding ahead of them, Weiss angling her sword forward towards the cliff’s edge. Sure enough, while a few of the monsters or their mimics tried to bolt across it to reach Yang and Scapolite as the two Gems ran their wide arc, they lost all traction and were easily picked off by shells, fists, or a wicked-sharp blade.

Once the ice reached the fast-approaching drop, Ruby risked another glance back at the encroaching monsters. They were closer than ever—still several yards back, though. _Breathing room._ She dismissed her weapon, freeing her hands.

“Hang on!” she warned Weiss before hauling her up by her waist, just enough to get her feet off the ground so Ruby could sweep them both ahead with her petals. She set Weiss down right at the edge.

“Oh gods,” Weiss breathed, staring down with wide eyes. Ruby was frozen beside her for a moment, both of them mesmerised by a primal terror as they beheld an abyss, the ravine before them so deep the bottom was shrouded in darkness even under the bright afternoon sun.

She snapped herself out of it. “No time!”

Weiss jerked at her exclamation, turning back to the problem at hand. “Right! Uh…” She stared down at her sword for a moment, blank, then spun the cylinder. “I guess…maybe…?”

“If you don’t know what to do,” Ruby told her urgently, “just do what you’d see in a comic book.”

“I don’t _read_ comic books!”

“Oh man. What about manga? Anime? Saturday morning cartoons?”

“Why does that matter now!?”

“Because Mom’s sword’s gonna work in a way that made sense to her! This is the woman who built the video-game-logic vault, remember? If you wanna know how to use her sword, you have to think like her. Weiss—” Ruby grabbed her shoulders, looking her straight in the eyes with her most serious expression. “You have to think like an action hero.”

Weiss stared at her for just a moment before swinging her head to look at the monsters. They were closing in fast, but already some were trying to break off from the main pack, to flank the prey still in reach and crowd them from all sides. Ruby released her, darting to the left, centring herself between Weiss and the ice slick, facing down the Gem monsters.

In her peripheral vision, though, she saw as Weiss took a deep breath, turned the sword point-down, and drove it into the earth with a cry as she pulled the trigger.

The ground shook and creaked as if from an earthquake, the vibrations nearly knocking Ruby off her feet. Sharp, rough spikes of hard-packed earth, only just this side of stone, erupted from the ground in a straight column that extended halfway to the treeline, a miniature mountain range called forth by Weiss’s moment of inspiration. The fencer’s jaw dropped as she saw what she’d done. She snapped it shut hastily, reddening, when she saw Ruby looking.

The monsters had tried to scatter when the earth heaved, some even trying to turn and run, but they either speared themselves on the emerging spires, bounced right off, skidded on the ice slick and into range of Yang’s shotgun blasts, or got a taste of their own medicine in the form of a row of Scapolites, each clearly furious and with a whirling kusarigama at the ready. Ruby had planned for the two of them to stretch the ribbon on Scapolite’s weapon between them, but this was even better—believing themselves outnumbered, the monsters pulled another about-face and sought out easier prey: Ruby and Weiss.

Yang kept pace with the pack, ready to punt any that tried to cross the ice slick right back across, but they ignored her, knowing she couldn’t safely come to them any more than they could go to her. She could still fire into the group of them, and at least one of her shots was rewarded by four of the creatures disappearing at once and a Gemstone falling to the ground. She shouted in victory, grinning triumphantly.

“Uh, Ruby?” Weiss asked, coming to stand beside her. “What do we do when they reach us?

“We _whoosh_ behind them and take out anything that manages to hit the brakes in time.”

“How are we going to get past them if you’re carrying me?”

Ruby waited until the monsters were nearly on them before she replied. “Like this!”

She scooped Weiss up and blurred into petals, using the earthwork wall to ‘run’ along. Weiss caught her balance easily this time, clearly getting used to this sort of transport, and Ruby had her scythe out as soon as they were both on their feet. They were about halfway down the run, and Ruby heard rapid footsteps coming up behind them—Scapolite was nearly caught up.

No such luck for the panther pack, though. Ruby wasn’t sure how many of the cat-like monsters which tumbled over the cliff had Gemstones, but the creatures clearly weren’t able to turn on a dime. Maybe half of their whittled-down number managed to catch themselves in time, scrabbling and churning in a confused, yowling huddle as Yang continued to pick them off as best she could.

Weiss narrowed her eyes, spinning her sword’s cylinder again and pointing the blade at the monsters. Lightning forked out, blazing-bright, and struck the pack, disintegrating the bulk of them on contact. Weiss looked stunned as two more Gemstones hit the grass. Yang whooped. “God _damn,_ Weiss!”

The last handful of panther monsters broke free of their indecision and tore back down the run, harried still by Yang, but none of her targets dropped Gemstones. As they came into range, Ruby whipped her scythe across the front line, vanishing a flurry of holograms. Weiss struck out almost blindly, spearing another, and then only one monster remained.

Scapolite leapt over their heads, burying her blade in the monster’s spine. It ripped free with the force of her own falling weight as she flipped gracefully in midair, landing in a neat crouch on the grass as the creature shrieked and dissipated, one last Gemstone falling free. Yang skidded to a stop as she drew level with her, spreading her arms wide for balance as she picked her way across the ice slick with almost comical care.

“Is it over?” Weiss asked, half-disbelieving as she looked over at Ruby.

“It’s over,” Ruby assured her; then, grinning: “We did it!”

* * *

Half of it, anyway. As Yang was quick to point out, they still had to retrieve and bubble the corrupted Gemstones. She was cheerful even as she said it, though, giving Scapolite a slap on the back and Weiss a light punch to the shoulder. “But _you guys!”_ She ignored their clear confusion, human and Homeworld Gem directing the same bemused look at her hands and down at themselves. “That was awesome!”

Once they’d found the Gemstones which had fallen out in the open, Yang bubbled them and waved the three of them off towards the warp.

“I wanna make sure to get any that might be down there,” she said, tipping her head towards the ravine. “Wish me luck!”

Scapolite’s eyes went wide, stretching out a hand as Yang ran right to the edge and leapt over. “Wait—!”

“It’s okay,” Ruby said, catching her arm as the Gem jerked forward. “She’ll have her wings out before she gets anywhere near the bottom. She’s just being dramatic.”

“Her _wings?”_

“Yeah, you know, shapeshifting?”

Scapolite’s brow furrowed, but she lowered her arm and relaxed her posture, turning to follow Ruby as she led the way back into the forest. “I should have known the Rebellion would be more cavalier about that sort of thing…”

Ruby wrinkled her nose. “It kinda feels like Homeworld regulates all the coolest stuff Gems can do. Shapeshifting, Fusion…”

“Exercising free will,” Weiss muttered under her breath.

“Gems are created to fulfil specific functions,” Scapolite insisted again. “We’re optimised for them from the moment of our creation. When we modify ourselves, we lose that.”

“Yeah, but…you said your job was to assess new colonies. But you were here even after Homeworld started its colony, so I don’t get it. Why try to make sure people are fit for one job and only one job if they aren’t going to be _doing_ that job the whole time?”

“And if they _are,_ that’s a whole different problem,” Weiss said, finally getting Scapolite’s attention. “What?”

“How is performing your function a ‘problem’?”

“If it’s the _only_ thing you do? Even if you love it, you burn out eventually. And what if you hate it, but aren’t allowed to stop?” Weiss suddenly looked rather uncomfortable. “N-not that it’s not important to push through and get things done anyway. Nothing ever gained by staying still.”

“Except a good night’s sleep,” Ruby pointed out. “You gotta stop sometime.”

“Gems do not need sleep,” Scapolite protested.

“No, but Yang and Qrow—um, another Gem we know—they sleep sometimes anyway, just to rest and reset. And even Gems that never sleep always have some other way of recharging, even if they don’t do it often enough,” Ruby added. “Do you have anything like that?”

“Being idle is a waste of our Diamonds’ time,” Scapolite said immediately—the same kind of quick response Ruby got from Weiss sometimes, with questions she’d been taught to answer in a certain way. A glance at Weiss’s face showed the pale girl looked mortified and then, just for a moment, _achingly_ sympathetic before she caught Ruby’s eye and looked away, reddening.

“But you don’t have to answer to anyone anymore,” Ruby said, no longer certain who she was talking to.

“The Diamond Authority may not have a presence on this world, but they’re still out there.” Scapolite shook her head. “I’m _not_ like you. I’m not a rebel.”

“I’m not a rebel either.” Ruby shrugged awkwardly. “I mean, I wear this cloak and I know I sometimes talk about the Rebellion like I’m part of it, but…I’m not. I never will be. The war’s been over for thousands of years. You can’t be a rebel if you don’t have anything to rebel against.”

“But every other Gem on this planet either _was_ part of the Rebellion or just couldn’t be bothered to stand up for Homeworld.”

Thinking of Torchwick, Ruby murmured, “I think it’s a little more complicated than that…”

“Do you _want_ to stand up for Homeworld?” Weiss asked, something tight and harsh on the edge of her voice.

“‘Want’?” Scapolite echoed. Her own voice just sounded hollow.

“You’re allowed to want things, Scapolite,” Ruby said quietly.

“I _want_ this crack in my Gem gone. I _don’t want_ to end up back in the Record.”

“We can help with both of those things!”

“Can you?” It didn’t really sound like a question. Scapolite’s expression was blank. “You just admitted you have no authority in the Rebellion, that you aren’t even really _part_ of it. So who runs things around here then? Are they going to listen to you? The Gems who locked me up, are they going to just let me go free because you said ‘please’? Is _anywhere_ on this planet ever going to be safe for me, between the monsters and the Gems who fight them?”

“Well, they’re not—” _the ones who locked you up_ , they _couldn’t_ have been, they would _never—_ right? “They’ll—” _listen,_ of course they would, but Yang hadn’t seemed so sure about that. “I don’t—” _know what to do._

“That’s what I thought,” Scapolite said softly, almost like she was talking to herself.

“We can _help_ you,” Ruby insisted.

“You _want_ to help me. That doesn’t necessarily mean you can.”

Weiss reached out and caught Scapolite by the arm, stopping her just before she could step past Ruby into the clearing with the warp. “And _that_ doesn’t mean you shouldn’t let us try,” she said, looking up to meet her eyes.

“We’ve got time before we’ll have to explain who you are or where you came from,” Ruby pointed out, ducking around a tree and into the open, looking back over her shoulder at Scapolite as she added, “We just have to be smart about it.”

“Smart about what?” Qrow asked.

Ruby froze; she felt Scapolite do likewise beside her. Qrow stood not a yard in front of her, a dark, silvery bubble containing a Gemstone resting in the palm of one hand.

“H-hey, Qrow,” Ruby said brightly. “What’re you doing here?”

“So funny thing about Beacon being on ‘essential systems only’—most of the surveillance system is down, but the perimeter cameras count as _essential._ And guess who gets an alert when they go off?”

Motion behind Qrow caught Ruby’s eye. Ozpin was rising to his full height from where he’d been crouched, crackling green energy enveloping the Gemstone in his left hand. His right hand was wrapped firmly around the handle of his cane in a reverse grip, fingers tucked neatly beneath the knuckle-guard—ready to fight.

“We would have been here sooner, had there been a closer warp,” Ozpin said neutrally, casting his eyes over them, lingering on Scapolite and on the sword in Weiss’s hand. “It seems we weren’t needed, however. Unless Yang…?”

“She’s okay,” Ruby replied, glancing nervously between the three Gems. “Um. So, this is Scapolite—”

“Yeah,” Qrow said dryly. “The whole ‘walking right through the barrier’ thing was kind of a giveaway.”

“…Okay,” Ruby whispered to herself, then cleared her throat. “Scapolite, this is—”

“I know who they are,” Scapolite said through gritted teeth; her eyes were wild, hunted. She clenched her fist, her Gemstone gleaming, but nothing happened.

 _Can I finish a sentence, please?_ Ruby thought, a little hysterically. _Hard to talk this out otherwise._

Oddly, Ozpin’s voice had grown gentler when he spoke again, addressing Scapolite directly. “Stand down. We have no quarrel with you. _Qrow.”_ —because the Pearl’s stance had shifted as soon as Scapolite had moved, and he wasn’t looking too _stood-down_ himself.

“I will if she does.”

“Hey! She’s—” On our side, Ruby wanted to say, but she wasn’t sure how well Scapolite would react to that. “She’s a friend.”

“Is she now?” Qrow asked as Scapolite glanced at her with an expression that was edging out of _surprised_ and into _alarmed_. “Seems like that’s news to her.”

Ruby stood by her claim anyway, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin to fix Qrow with a stubborn look, pulling his eyes away from Scapolite’s wary gaze. “She helped us fight those monsters. I don’t know if we could have done it without her.”

“There were a lot of them,” Weiss chimed in. “Yang’s bubbling the rest of the Gemstones now.”

“And you seem to have joined the fight as well,” Ozpin observed, his attention once again on Summer’s sword. “I wasn’t aware you had any training as a Huntress.”

“Well—I—” Weiss floundered. “That is to say—”

Ozpin spoke smoothly over her. “The matter of your participation can wait, however. Scapolite—oh dear.”

“What?” Ruby looked up at the Gem beside her, even as she heard a soft groan of “Aw, _shit,”_ from Qrow. Scapolite was still staring him down. And continued to stare down the space where he had been when he strode forward, summoning his scythe, and walked right past her, driving the haft of his weapon into her back.

Ruby’s eyes widened in shock as Scapolite shuddered and deformed like a glitching screen before vanishing entirely. A hard-light projection. Just like the panthers. And who even knew how many more might be running through the forest now, confusing Scapolite’s trail?

“Your ‘friend’ bailed,” Qrow said bluntly. He hadn’t even broken stride, continuing towards the treeline and grabbing hold of a low-hanging branch. He swung himself up, his body shimmering with silver-black energy, and then he was gone. Ruby saw a crow winging over the treetops, flying in a loose zig-zag.

“Seems to be a pattern,” Weiss said, soft and glum.

“Go back to Beacon,” Ozpin ordered. “Wait in my office. Yang will be joining you shortly. And Scapolite, if she can be found.”

Ruby touched his arm as he passed her; not a full-on grab, like Weiss had unthinkingly done to Scapolite, but it stopped him just the same. “She doesn’t want to hurt anyone,” she pleaded.

“And neither Qrow nor I wish to hurt her.” Ozpin’s face was serious, but his voice had remained gentle and even. “People seldom want to hurt each other, young Rose, but we do it anyway. Do you really think we’d attack unprovoked?”

Ruby’s eyes flicked down to Ozpin’s readied weapon. His gaze had turned sad when she met it again.

“I know you wouldn’t,” she said, and this time she was sure she believed it. “But Scapolite doesn’t.”

“Then I shall have to do my best to convince her, and hope she is wise enough not to provoke us before I get the chance.”

“We could help—” But Ozpin was turning to Weiss even as the human spoke, shaking his head.

“If she thinks of you as friends, better you don’t make yourself her hunters. A sense of betrayal can drive us to far worse action than we would take against a known enemy.” The _‘and if she doesn’t…’_ hung unspoken, but Ruby could hardly object to something that hadn’t been said. “Now please, get to safety. Both of you.”

Ruby felt the fabric of his jacket slip away beneath her fingertips as he walked on into the forest.

* * *

Yang held onto her dragon form as she rose from the ravine, gliding easily over the treetops and scaring a flock of birds from their perches. No point in walking alone through the woods. That was just asking for trouble, and while Yang had no real objections to another fight—though she’d prefer one a little less stacked against her than the last one—she was in a hurry to rejoin the others.

They needed to come up with a plan to ensure that Scapolite could seek treatment at Haven without risking her newfound liberty, and they needed to do it before Scapolite lost faith in their ability to keep her safe. Oh, Yang didn’t _really_ think Oz or Qrow or any of the other high-ranking surviving Rebels would _hurt_ their new friend, but detaining her would be almost as bad considering Scapolite’s current mental state. And if they scared Scapolite off before they even had a chance to talk, she’d run and she’d never stop. Yang could see it in her eyes. She’d run with a cracked Gem and not an ally in the world besides the very people she’d run from in the first place, and she’d get herself shattered.

A darting motion on the ground below caught Yang’s eye, and while it took her a moment to recognise Scapolite, when she did, she groaned aloud. Of course. She’d walked away for like, ten minutes; why wouldn’t everything have gone to hell already?

She tucked her wings and dived, heading for the closest gap in the canopy. It wasn’t much of one; she had to shift back into her real shape just before she hit the uppermost branches, catching herself on them as she dropped to break her fall. She hit the ground feet-first right in front of Scapolite, who stumbled and reared back in alarm, her eyes wild.

“Whoa, hey!” Yang held out her hands, an abortive grab turned into a placating gesture. She was pretty sure Scapolite would rather fall on her ass than be snatched at right now, no matter Yang’s intentions. She needn’t have worried, though; Scapolite caught her balance easily, her weight on her back foot and her knees bent as if she expected to fight. Her Gem flashed, and she grimaced, resting a hand over her navel to shield it.

“I’m not going back,” Scapolite insisted, her voice low and tense. “I _won’t.”_

“No one’s trying to—” but Scapolite’s head jerked around, as if she’d heard something behind her. “Okay, well, _I’m_ not trying to make you go back, except to Beacon so we can come up with some kind of game plan. We can go somewhere else if you’d feel safer. Some of Ruby’s friends work at a bakery downtown; I bet they’d let us use a back room or something.”

“Oh, and how long before Rebellion officers show up there, huh? Because Rose Quartz’s psychotic Pearl sidekick and an _armed Rebel Commander_ are _right behind me._ Oh sh—!”

She lunged forward, grabbing Yang by the front of her jacket and flinging them both into the undergrowth, out of the tiny break in the trees. Yang looked up just in time to see a solitary crow wing silently overhead.

“You’re running from _Qrow and Ozpin?”_ she hissed incredulously. Because yeah, she’d been the first to suggest they might just lock Scapolite away again, but it had only been a possibility. Monsters would go for the kill, and that was a guarantee. _“Deeper_ into the forest? Are you crazy?”

“You don’t _get it,_ do you!?” Half on top of her, Scapolite shook Yang’s shoulders. “I’m an enemy combatant. A Scapolite. A _spy._ Do you know what _happens_ to spies in wartime?”

“The war’s _over_ —”

“A war with the Diamonds isn’t over until the Diamonds _win,_ Yang!” Scapolite growled, guttural, almost hysterical. “They don’t stop. They don’t _give up._ They don’t just _leave.”_

“But they _did!”_ Yang struggled to sit up, catching Scapolite by the shoulders to keep from tipping her to the ground as she curled her legs in, and she gave the other Gem a little shake of her own. “We’ve had peace for thousands of years. I’ve never even _met_ a Homeworld Gem. Until today, I guess.”

Scapolite laughed mirthlessly. “I bet at least half the Gems you know were Homeworld Gems. Your best fighters, your cleverest technicians, your most brilliant scientists. Now imagine an _army_ of them, enough to cover your whole planet, and multiply that _twenty-seven times over._ Probably more by now. New colonies only take a few thousand years to establish, and there’s still three Diamonds left.”

A spark of fear lit in Yang’s chest as the haphazard equation wrote itself out in her mind and then froze, refusing to deliver the terrible solution. Ozpin, she realised, must have done this same problem with hard numbers long ago, and its answer surely sat at the heart of his age-old paranoia, and no wonder Qrow always seemed to pander to it whenever it flared up, no wonder even _Summer_ had rarely done anything but let it run its course. Abruptly her fear blazed into anger, at them, at Scapolite, at the faceless tyrants whose _memory_ was enough to pull all of their strings.

“So you’re gonna run. _Just in case_ they decide to act like the war’s still going, ’cause they might do that _just in case_ it still is?” She punched the ground hard, leaving a little crater ringed with loose dirt and moss next to her knee. Scapolite twitched violently at the noise and Yang lowered her voice, feeling tears gather at the rim of her eyes and hating it. “What is _wrong_ with all of you? Deciding what to do based on what _might_ be happening light-years away instead of looking around and paying attention to what’s happening here and now!? We can’t change what tomorrow’s gonna bring. But we can sure as hell choose not to bring our old crap _into_ tomorrow with us.”

To her surprise, Scapolite didn’t fire back, or curl up on herself defensively, or even just walk away. Instead, the Gem reached out her violet hand and brushed a thumb over Yang’s cheekbone. Yang controlled the urge to flinch away, feeling her face screw up in an expression of alarmed confusion that mirrored the one Scapolite had worn when she’d re-formed in Glynda’s office…hours ago, just hours, and not many of them.

Scapolite drew her hand back and frowned at it, rubbing her thumb against her other fingers, brushing Yang’s tears off of it. “Why is this happening?”

“I’m _upset,”_ Yang said stiffly, her anger snuffed out by uncertainty. She didn’t like it. Anger wasn’t pleasant or really all that useful if your problem couldn’t be fixed by punching, but it was familiar. And Yang could honestly really use a problem that could be fixed by punching. She almost wished another round of panther monsters would drop out of the trees just to get things back on track.

“Which…switched on your optical cleaning subroutine? Oh.” Scapolite blinked several times rapidly—too rapidly, and Yang realised she was tearing up as well. “That’s reassuring. I thought it was a side-effect of the crack.”

“You talk about yourself like you’re a robot,” Yang said. “You’re not, you know. You don’t have to be what you were told to be. You can be anyone now. You could pick a name! You look like a…Sarah. Or a Belle? I bet you could pull off Kiki, that’s a fun name, or something sharp and modern like Schuyler or Blake. Hey, Schuyler even sounds kinda like Scapolite!” She was babbling now, saying whatever came into her head at a mile per minute like someone had swapped her brain with Ruby’s, like she was trying to speak an entire river of words whose current could sweep the two of them past every obstacle and out to the open sea.

“I _can’t_ be what I was told to be.” Scapolite shrugged helplessly. “I don’t have a mission. But I can’t be something I’m not, either, and it’d be suicide to try. I’m not joining the losing side, _especially_ not after what the Rebellion’s done to me, and they’re _going_ to lose, Yang. Someday the Authority will come back and this world is going to burn. I won’t burn with it.”

“You’re wrong.” Yang shook her head fiercely. “Okay? You’re wrong.”

“I’m really not.” With a darting motion that spoke of impulse, Scapolite grabbed Yang’s hand, her face earnest, words tumbling out of her desperately. “You could come with me. Distance yourself from the Rebels while you have the chance. You emerged after the fighting stopped; you weren’t part of their war, _you_ aren’t a traitor! Once the Authority sees how good you are in a fight, I’m sure they won’t care that you’re off-colour! I’ll tell them about how you helped me escape, and—and they might even assign us to the same unit, if we work well enough together!”

“Distance—you want me to leave the others? What about Ruby? Weiss? We _all_ helped set you free!”

“Weiss is organic, and R-Ruby…she’s _Rose Quartz,_ Yang.” Scapolite’s face crumpled, distraught. “She’ll either be killed with the rest of the natives, or shattered as a traitor.”

“She _didn’t do anything!_ And even if she _were_ Summer, I couldn’t just let that happen to her—to either of them. _Any_ of them. Scapolite, please.” She turned her wrist so she was holding Scapolite’s hand in return. “This is crazy. We’re _safe_ here, I promise. Please, just let us heal your Gem and we’ll smooth things over with Oz and Qrow and find you somewhere to live—you can crash in my room until then! I’ve got this sweet patio setup on the garage roof and…” She trailed off. Scapolite’s expression hadn’t changed. She just shook her head, slowly.

“I know you don’t want to believe me, but I know what I’m talking about. The only thing I can do is vouch for you when the time comes, but I can’t do that if you’re clustered with a bunch of rebels. Rebel _leaders;_ Diamonds’ eyes, Yang, there’s no spinning that!”

“They’re my family,” Yang said, quiet but firm. “I won’t turn my back on my family.”

“‘Family’?” Scapolite echoed.

“Yeah.”

“No, I—I don’t know what that is. I can’t find an equivalent word. Is it like…‘unit’?”

“It’s hard to explain. You more _feel_ it than anything.” Yang bit her lip. “You could…learn what it means, if you want.” _If you stay._ “With us.”

Scapolite looked at her for a long moment. She smiled sadly, and withdrew her hand. Yang was already taking in breath to protest, to try and come up with something, _anything_ that would convince her to stay and _let them help her,_ when Scapolite silenced her by leaning forward and wrapping her arms around her neck, resting her head on Yang’s shoulder. Yang froze in shock. The breath left her in a shuddering sigh.

“Well.” She blinked, then laughed, uncertain but relieved. “Okay then. Don’t get me wrong, I meant that, I just didn’t expect it to actually work and—yeah. Uh.” Tentative, she reached out. “Welcome to the…”

As soon as her hands made contact with Scapolite’s back, the Gem’s form shimmered and rippled. The warm, glowing ball of happiness in Yang’s chest collapsed, a miniature sun without enough mass to go nova.

“…family.”

She tightened her arms around the hologram, and it fizzled and burst.

* * *

Ruby shifted awkwardly as silence descended on the headmaster’s office atop Beacon Tower. She wasn’t sure what her attitude was supposed to be here: repentant? Defiant? Or…what? Weirdly, despite the current venue and the fact that Ruby’s recent experience told her she should be in for a telling-off, she was getting the distinct feeling that none of them were actually in trouble this time. The only thing making her feel small right now was the scale of the room itself. Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to her that the headmaster’s office being the only room on the top floor meant that the top floor _was_ the room, and oh, yeah, it was also _two storeys high._

 _“Debrief in T-minus two. Get your facts in order,”_ Yang had said when she stepped off the elevator, blunt and brisk, her expression strangely closed-off. She’d gone to stand quietly to Ruby’s left, putting the hybrid girl in the middle of her partners in apparently-not-crime, and so it was Ruby who found herself the focus of Ozpin’s expectant gaze when he entered almost precisely two minutes later with Qrow a half-step behind him and asked her to…well, to report, though he never actually said the word. And wasn’t _that_ surreal, standing on the other side of a desk from one of the people who’d raised her and doing her best impression of someone who knew what she was talking about? Qrow wasn’t much better, propping himself up against the nearest pillar and crossing his arms, looking over all three of them like a predator watching for signs of weakness.

Ruby had laid out the story as clearly as she could, starting with a rough outline of her and Weiss’s misadventures in Summer’s secret room (the sword’s presence had to be explained, given everyone had seen it in Weiss’s hand earlier and it was currently laid out on the desk) and how they’d seized on Glynda’s emblem as their best and only clue as to the vault’s nature. This first part of the story was rife with interruptions, some corrections from Weiss and a bewildered “What the fuck, Summer?” that Qrow had not uttered quite so far under his breath as he clearly thought he had, but mostly clipped, pointed questions from Ozpin. Eventually, the Garnet seemed to realise he’d reached the limits of their knowledge and backed off, literally leaning back in his chair and urging Ruby to continue.

So she did, glossing over the part where she’d riffled through his personal belongings looking for answers and skipping straight to their meeting with Oobleck earlier that day, uttering Glynda’s name in a delicate tone to which Ozpin did not react but which caused Qrow to briefly look away. She told them about finding Glynda’s office. And she told them about the Record and the cracked Gem trapped in its cover, barely-conscious and alone, and was gratified to see a flash of horror on Qrow’s face. The sudden blankness of Ozpin’s worried her, though—at least until she saw Yang’s shoulders relax in her peripheral vision, the Ametrine ducking her head briefly and lifting it to reveal a softer, more open expression than she’d walked in with.

The rest of the story was a straight line: Scapolite had run, they had pursued, they’d all worked together to defend themselves from monsters, and then she, Weiss, and Scapolite had all but walked right into Ozpin and Qrow shortly after they themselves had arrived at the Emerald Forest warp. Yang had chimed in to add that she’d encountered Scapolite herself on her way to rendezvous with the others, but that the latter Gem had used a decoy to distract her and fled.

_I’d stake Weiss’s fortune on there being more to that story._

Now Ozpin sat in absolute stillness at his desk, one hand cupped around the other, not looking directly at any of them. Qrow had his head tilted back, his narrowed eyes seeming by turns to stare at the ceiling and past it. Really, there was just a spectacular lack of eye contact all around, Yang also giving the ceiling her full attention (though she seemed oddly perturbed by it, for some reason) and Weiss staring at a fixed point over Ozpin’s shoulder, possibly taking in the view of Vale through the clear glass face of the unmoving clock but also possibly emulating Winter’s finest look- _toward-_ but-not- _at_ technique.

“That book she had on her belt,” Qrow said at last, breaking the silence. “That the Record?”

“Yup. Yes,” Ruby corrected hastily, though she wasn’t sure why.

“Don’t suppose you got a chance to look through it?”

Yang snorted. “Sorta. Can’t read Gem glyphs, remember?”

“We—well, Yang—was able to make out some names. Gem types, anyway,” Weiss clarified, glancing over at her.

“Glynda was a White Agate,” Ozpin said, resuming all the nuanced movements of life so suddenly that Ruby startled a little. “A relatively uncommon combination of type and colour. Did you see any mentions of her in the early pages?”

Qrow looked at him, openly shocked. And then it was her turn for shock when his eyes narrowed into a glare. “You don’t seriously think _Glynda_ would _ever—!”_

Ozpin cut him off with a raised hand and a sharp look, neither of which Qrow looked too happy about. “I didn’t think Summer would ever build a trans-dimensional back door into _our own fortress_ , either, but clearly it’s a day for surprises.” His tone was like a desert—flat, dry, and decidedly unwelcoming. “Yang?”

Qrow hunched his shoulders and leaned back like he was trying to press himself into the stone, glaring at the floor. Weiss shifted uneasily, while Ruby bit her lip. _So much for the great united front…_

“She…was mentioned in early pages,” Yang said, glancing between the two older Gems with an echo of the alarm Ruby felt. “Not on the first one, though. Which, I mean, she’d pretty much have to be if she was the one who trapped Scapolite in there, right? But she wasn’t.”

“You’re certain?”

“Hundred percent.”

Ozpin closed his eyes briefly. “It doesn’t exonerate her, but it does make it far less likely that she had anything to do with the Record’s creation, rather than simply taking ownership of it after it was made. Though that still leaves us with the question of who would have done something like this. Putting empty shards to use is one thing, but a living Gemstone, cracked or not—it’s the sort of casual cruelty and ill-use many of us joined the Rebellion to escape. Who would have been devoted enough to the cause to create such a powerful tool for our use yet so divorced from our principles to do so at such—?”

“Yeah, uh, that first page mention anything about a Bismuth?” Qrow interrupted _._ “His batch wasn’t heavily oxidised, so it mighta specified _silver_ or just left off the _rainbow_ part.”

“Uh.” Once again, Yang’s eyes darted between the two of them. “Yeah, actually. I figured one probably at least consulted on making it, so…”

“Surely he wouldn’t…” But the conviction had bled out of Ozpin’s voice long before he trailed off. “Merlot.”

“Merlot,” Qrow repeated in the same worn-out tone. “Why were you friends with that creep again?”

Ozpin’s fingertips slipped beneath his dark lenses, as if he meant to rub at his shut-tight eyes, only they didn’t seem to make it that far. “Because he was clever, and I have an enduring fondness for the clever.”

“Bad taste in men’s what you got.”

“We were _only_ friends, Qrow.”

“Yeah, but did _he_ know that? Was he, y’know, _aware_ enough of other people existing and having feelings to know that?”

Something between a scoff, a sigh, and a groan found its way out of Ozpin’s throat.

“Okay wait, I’m sorry, who the hell is Merlot?” Yang demanded.

“Mad scientist. Creepy, genius Bismuth who basically ran R&D for the Rebellion until he managed to blow his lab up with him still inside. Did I mention he was creepy? And that his moral compass only worked with Oz and Summer both personally holdin’ the damn needle in place?” Qrow shuddered. “Good times. And good riddance.”

“His contributions to the Rebellion were invaluable,” Ozpin said reprovingly; then, softer, “and he _was_ my friend, for all his flaws.”

Qrow sighed. “Yeah, I know. Sorry.”

“Qrow is right, however, in that he is most likely the creator of the Record,” Ozpin conceded, turning his attention back to Yang. “He would have had the expertise, the access, and, yes, the lack of moral integrity to conceive and execute such an invention. And given his position, had he told Glynda the Gemstone powering the Record was cracked through and empty, she would have had no reason to doubt him. What I don’t know is why I’m only just learning of the Record’s existence. Depending on its range of operation, it could have been an invaluable strategic asset.”

“Okay, I think we all know what you’re saying, but considering you just defended Merlot, maybe you wanna rephrase?” Qrow suggested. Ozpin had the grace to look embarrassed, but another thought had struck Qrow, and the Pearl wasted no time in sharing. “So that’s two mysterious inventions in the last few months that none of us knew about. If _this_ one traces back to Merlot, what’re the odds the Forever Fall drone _doesn’t?”_

“Clearly, he was working on experiments neither of us were privy to,” Ozpin agreed, his tone calm, but Ruby had the sense that something in him had lightened at Qrow’s suggestion. The set of his shoulders seemed looser somehow, the ghost of his usual smile pulling just a little at the line of his mouth. “It might be worth a visit to the island. See what we may see.”

“But what about Scapolite?” Yang burst out. “I mean, hooray for answers, _no one_ is more over this drone drama than me, but there is an injured Gem out there, scared and alone, and she thinks we’re her _enemies._ What are we going to do about _her?”_

“We will search for her,” Ozpin said.

Qrow sighed. “And by ‘we’, you mean me.”

 _And us,_ Ruby thought, seeing the determination on Yang’s face.

“Ideally, yes. Despite Scapolite’s fears, I at least have no intention of harming or detaining her unless she demonstrates that she is a clear and present threat to the people of Remnant.” Qrow nodded agreement as Ozpin continued. “There is no way for her to travel or even communicate off-planet, whether or not she wishes to betray us to Homeworld. However, we need to retrieve the Record. Whatever information it contains could be dangerous in the wrong hands—even if those hands don’t belong to Diamonds.”

“But you’ll make sure she gets healed?”

“If she cooperates.”

Yang looked like she was about to object, but Qrow spoke first. “Look, firecracker, we can’t kidnap her and drop her on Leo’s doorstep with a tag saying ‘please take care of this Gem’. She’s a grown-ass person who has to make her own decisions. We’ll help her if she lets us. If she doesn’t, or she tries to screw us over, then it’s out of our hands.”

“Much like Scapolite herself, for the moment. On which note, Qrow, don’t let me forget to recalibrate the barrier. Friend or foe, I’d prefer she be unable to waltz in on a whim and an altered wavelength.”

“Oh, is _that_ how she did it?” Ruby exclaimed. If Scapolite could alter the wavelength in which she projected her body, she could do more than just slide through a forcefield. …‘Just’ slide through the forcefield that had kept Beacon safe for centuries, right. “Wait! Is that how she snuck away without any of us seeing her? She made herself harder to see somehow?”

Qrow nodded. “Scapolites have natural stealth cloaking. Doesn’t last more’n a few minutes at a time, unless they wanna degrade their bodies to the point of needing to completely re-form, but you can get a lot done in a few minutes. Getting past barriers like ours, that’s more a bonus than anything. Only works if they know how the field’s set up, too—guess she must have absorbed a little more from the Record than she knows,” he added grimly. “So the good news is that once we do a little tinkering, Beacon should be secure again. Except for the whole…thing with the…basement and the vault and…” He sighed. “Zwei.”

“Where is Zwei, anyway?” Ruby asked, suddenly realising he wasn’t there.

“He was waiting by the warp when I got here.” Yang shrugged. “Barked up a portal and walked through it as soon as he saw me. Maybe he’s home snoozing, now that he knows we all made it back okay.”

“As long as we keep him close, and no one outside this room ever learns he can open a path to the Tower, he should be no more of a security risk than the mere existence of the warp in our backyard,” Ozpin pointed out. “Though that does bring me to the last point I wished to address.”

Weiss stiffened as it was finally her turn to face Ozpin’s scrutiny, the old Garnet unfolding from his chair and taking Summer’s sword in hand. He rounded the desk and bent down slightly in front of her, just enough that she didn’t have to crane her neck too far to look up at him.

“There used to be a network of cameras in the Emerald Forest, you know. It was where would-be Huntsmen and Huntresses were sent to prove themselves, or else expose any flaws too great for training alone to overcome. Do you believe you’ve proven yourself today, Weiss?”

 _It’s a trap,_ Ruby saw instantly, trying in vain to will the knowledge into Weiss’s mind. _Say ‘no’. I know it’ll hurt your pride but just say ‘no’!_

Well, maybe her attempt at telepathy _had_ worked after all, or else Weiss had seen the trap for herself or felt an uncharacteristic surge of modesty. Whatever the reason, her reply was a quiet, if not a little sullen, “No.”

“For better or worse,” Ozpin said after a long pause, “—better, I hope—those days are behind us. The majority of the corrupted Gems have already been dealt with, and we have the luxury of picking our battles, now. The combination of a weapon and inexperience is no longer a death sentence, so long as one is aware of one’s limitations.”

He tossed the sword lightly, flipping it in midair and offering it hilt-first to Weiss, who stared at it blankly.

“You’re letting me keep it?”

“‘Letting you’?” Ozpin smiled at her. “I’m simply returning your property. This sword was never mine to give. Nor is it mine to take away.”

“So—wait.” Ruby exchanged shocked glances with Weiss. “We’re really not in trouble? For any of it?”

Ozpin raised an eyebrow. “For what? Falling into a portal? Searching an unlocked room? Freeing an injured captive from cruel and unlawful imprisonment? Or perhaps you think we’re upset you didn’t then let her die in the forest, or that you defended yourselves.”

“We could’ve used a heads-up on Summer’s vault, sure,” Qrow added. “And I mean, come on, you’ve all got scrolls, you coulda called someone for help when things went south today. But it’s not like you ran into danger for no reason. You weren’t stupid about it.”

“If the best choices were always the safest ones,” Ozpin pointed out with a wry smile, “we’d all be out of work.”

_All._ Ruby felt a surge of pride, realising that—maybe for the first time—she’d been counted as part of the Hunt.

“I’m…still not a Huntress,” Weiss said, gaze flicking from the sword-hilt to Ozpin’s face and back again.

“Even so, you have a weapon and a victory now. What you do with them is up to you.”

Cautiously, Weiss reached out and wrapped her fingers around her sword’s handle.

“And if ever you do wish for further training,” Ozpin told her, “you need only ask.”

“And so it begins!” Ruby hadn’t heard Yang move, but the Gem had come to stand with them, and she knocked her knuckles against Weiss’s shoulder with a little grin.

“Hey!” Weiss pulled away, glaring. “It’s going to bruise if you keep doing that!”

“Oh, okay, I’m sorry, here.” She bopped her fingers against the spot with a weak little “eh” noise. “Is that better?”

“Yang,” Ruby sighed, stifling a laugh. Ozpin stepped back from them, looking equal parts amused and bemused, and looked back at Qrow to see the Pearl roll his eyes dramatically, shaking his head.

He was still smiling, though, even as he pushed away from the pillar and headed for the elevators. “Ah, come on. That barrier isn’t gonna fix itself.”

* * *

Scapolite ducked into an alley, leaning heavily against a wall. Her body ached, loudly voicing its displeasure with everything she’d put it through today, but the sharpest pain of all sat behind her navel, following the jagged line crossing her Gemstone. Rest—rest would make the pain better, even if it would do nothing to truly heal her. As long as she could keep out of any more fighting, she was fairly certain she’d be fine. And if she didn’t, she’d be shattered in no time, already cracked and with only her bare hands to defend herself.

She closed her eyes and tried to will her weapon into being. Her Gemstone flickered, and she hissed between her teeth at the feeling of a phantom dagger sliding into her belly and _twisting._ She bit back a groan and tipped her head back against the dirty brick.

No. Remnant still wasn’t living up to the hype.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So why, you may be wondering, does this fic now have a Bumbleby tag when I *still* don’t have a real White Rose tag up? Because Yang and Blake are, as Qrow put it, ‘grown-ass people’ with centuries of life behind them while Ruby and Weiss are currently children, in many ways very sheltered children (and in Ruby’s case, not even really a teenager yet) who are pretty unknowingly negotiating the line between friendship and puppy love. They’re gonna grow up and when they do they’re gonna be very close, but it may not be in a romantic sense, and tagging them as a romance feels kind of like baiting White Rose shippers with something that not only isn’t really there yet but might not ever *be* there. Not sure if that makes sense to anyone that isn’t me, but…*shrugs helplessly* Whereas with Blake and Yang, it was sort of…like, if Chapter 4 warranted an Arkos tag, this chapter had earned a Bumbleby tag. It felt like the same level of ‘well, clearly there’s *something* there’ that Jaune and Pyrrha had. As I’m pretty sure I’ve warned before, I’m not really big into shipping or writing romance stories, so this will remain a gen fic, just, also there’s kind of space lesbians now.
> 
> So yeah, anyway. The Record. I didn't wanna put Blake in Lapis's mirror because mirrors are Weiss's big symbolic ~*thing*~ in canon. I kind of had the idea of Blake being part of some kind of book in the back of my head while I was writing the last few chapters, but hadn’t fully locked it in until I remembered a MacGuffin from The Lost Princess of Oz called the Great Book of Records, a magic book belonging to Glinda the Good which records every significant event (read: relevant to the current protagonists) happening in the Land of Oz in real-time. Glynda's planned role conveniently provided a reason why the Record would have been abandoned all this time, since it didn’t make sense to have it in active use and it also felt pretty improbable that anyone who had been using the Record for thousands of years wouldn’t have figured out that the damn thing ran on 100% unleaded Nope-oleum and let Blake out early. Ta-da. Book.
> 
> See you next time for, uh. A chapter that really no longer bears any resemblance to the episode on which it was originally based, but which I’ve been building up to one way or another since, like, Chapter 3? In the meantime, feedback is always appreciated, so please consider leaving a comment. Whether you do or not, though, thanks for reading!


	11. Self-Possession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following up on a possible lead on the maker of the mysterious machine, Ruby and the Gems head to the island of the infamous not-actually-a-doctor Merlot, only to find themselves sorting through a lot more than old files...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahaha it finally exists! And it's not a two-parter! Whooo  
> Anyway I sure hope you still remember Chapter 6 because it's relevant to today's B plot. And I don't have a whole lot more to say--yet--so I'll stop typing and let you get on with the reading thing. I hope you enjoy!

Ruby woke up with a start. Her room was filled with the grey-blue gloam of dawn, much too early to get up even by her standards, but finally she processed the silhouette straightening up at her bedside.

“Qrow?” she mumbled, levering herself up on her elbows. “Wha’s goin’ on?”

“Remember we were checkin’ out Merlot’s old lab today?”

Ruby blinked, confused. Qrow leaned over and turned on her bedside lamp, and the light woke her up a little more. “…That island north of Forever Fall?”

“That’s the one.”

“Thought you and Yang were doing that alone. Why are you here?”

“Well, turns out the old bastard locked me outta the lab sometime before the end, so Yang came back and got Ozpin. Who also can’t get in anymore.”

Even half-asleep, Ruby could see where this was going. “So you figured Mom wouldn’ta been shut out and came to get me?”

“Got it in one. Yang and Oz are back at the site clearing away a much of the debris as they can. You get dressed, I’ll get breakfast ready. Coffee or tea?”

Ruby groaned, kicking off the covers. “Whatever’s got the most caffeine.”

“Tai’s weird green crap?”

“Ew.” She wrinkled her nose. “Coffee.”

“Can do. See you in ten.”

* * *

Ruby stepped gingerly off the warp, looking around. “Well, this is…welcoming.”

“Think the words you were looking for were ‘a blasted hellscape’.” Qrow followed her, his hands tucked in his pockets as he cast an unimpressed eye over the stark surroundings, ruddy rock and scraggly greyish undergrowth all around them.

“It’s not _that_ bad,” Ruby protested, without much feeling. Far behind the warp, she could see a few stubborn tufts of grass and some gnarled trees along a cliff that dropped off into the sea, but ahead? Nothing but the skeletal shapes of collapsed, rusting scaffolds indicated anything had ever lived here. Well, they weren’t exactly _rusting._ Iron would have been gone by now, all that time under the ocean breeze, and this stuff was oxidising an unfamiliar dull purplish-brown. “I mean, it’s not like the sky’s on fire or anything.”

“Eesh.” Qrow pulled his shoulders in as they walked, like he was spooked, or maybe just uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t’ve ever called this place _lush,_ the bight ain’t exactly hospitable, but it didn’t used to be this bad even when Merlot was still around. Wonder if there’s somethin’ contaminating all this. Radiation leak or a chem spill. Weren’t gettin’ enough rads to worry when we scanned before I went to get you, but who knows what the story is underground?”

“Underground?” Ruby was expecting something more on the scale of a high-tech castle, especially as they walked deeper and deeper into a rocky cut that was quickly graduating to canyon status. It didn’t look like the kind of thing that happened naturally on an island small enough to be left off the map.

“Mad scientist, remember? ’Course he wanted a lair. Plus we were at war. Helps if the other guys can’t get a camera up to the window or bomb your research facilities to oblivion. Not convenient for anyone tryin’ to take care of business once the fighting stops, but.” He shrugged.

“Didn’t anyone clean up after the lab went—” Ruby mimicked an explosion noise.

“Sure, your mom led the crew herself, but that was thousands of years ago, and it’s not like she dug up the infrastructure. Could be a line burst. Or maybe the place is just fuckin’ haunted. Who knows?”

_Cloooong!_

They froze at the deep, thunderously loud noise that echoed through the landscape. Ruby felt a prickle of unease over her shoulders. _Should I summon a weapon?_

Qrow regained equilibrium quickly, shaking himself sharply and walking on. “Must be Yang and Oz clearing crap away from the entrance. Some of the pieces were pretty hefty—one of the big ol’ ventilation ducts fell right across the shaft cover.”

Ruby scampered to catch up with him. “Can they get it all on their own?”

“Well, they’re about to have help. Come on, we’re almost there.”

They rounded a rocky outcropping and immediately had to duck as a broad slab of metal flew directly towards them. Qrow grabbed Ruby bodily and pulled her back around the curve.

“Oh dear. Qrow, Ruby? Is that you?” called an unfamiliar voice. Qrow stiffened briefly before squeezing his eyes shut and knocking his head back against the rock. “Are you alright?”

“Just peachy,” Qrow growled under his breath. “Yeah, we’re fine! You wanna stop flingin’ crap around?”

“That was the last of it!”

Ruby nudged him. “Uh, Qrow? Who is that?”

“The worst of both worlds,” he groaned, shoving himself forward. “Come on. We better go to her before she tries comin’ to us.”

“That doesn’t answer my question!”

“Does _that?”_

‘That’ being a somewhat sheepish-looking Gem who stood around ten feet tall—a little shorter than Charoite and slimmer as well, with masses of untidy platinum curls pulled back from a face the green-tinged gold of old bronze, two sets of pale eyes peering down at them over the oval lenses of dark glasses. A small triangular, translucent yellow Gemstone with a faint greenish cast of its own sat high on the forehead, right at the hairline, with a second, round stone just below the right elbow.

Ruby’s shocked, tired brain finally grasped what she was looking at, and her jaw dropped. She looked up at Qrow in a speechless plea for explanations. He just shook his head. “Guess they were on the same page as far as getting answers goes.”

“But—they— _she?”_ Ruby asked, flailing for something to latch onto.

“She,” Qrow confirmed. “She’ll answer to they/them, but not he/him. She/her is what most people guess anyway, so it works out.”

And Ruby could see now why someone would assume the Fusion was female, willowy and delicate-featured with a suggestion of curves around the torso that Charoite had lacked. As Ruby tentatively approached, Qrow matched her slow pace, either sensing her hesitation or feeling some of his own. Either way, she was grateful, as it gave her time to try and look Yang and Ozpin’s Fusion over without actually staring.

She wore a sleeveless bark-brown surcoat over what looked like a short, sleeveless cheongsam of dark sage green with a subtle light-catching pattern, falling to mid-thigh over brown leggings tucked into black boots that came up to just below the knee—no, _brown_ boots. A deep brown that darkened to near-black as it went down towards the soles, a gradient that Ruby soon noticed echoed the surcoat. Subtle gold embroidery shimmered at the hem and edged along the front of the coat, framing the high collar. And now that Ruby was closer, she stifled the urge to laugh as she realised the Fusion’s long hair was tied back with what looked an awful lot like Ozpin’s scarf.

“You guys really have _that_ much trouble movin’ shit separately?” Qrow drawled, tilting his head to look past her towards what looked like a huge slanted garage door set half into the ground and half into the low canyon wall.

The Fusion blinked at him, then spread her arms as if to indicate the wreckage and rubble strewn about her. All _four_ of her arms, a second set wearing vambraces emerging from beneath her coat. Her hands had been clasped behind her back. “You saw for yourself before you left. Most of this was in larger pieces.” There was a clear path to the door, which was itself unobstructed, but bits of rock and metal and what Ruby would swear was a short length of wide PVC pipe were scattered over the canyon floor. “Dismantling the debris would have drawn the drudgery out _dismally_. This way, we can walk right in, now that Ruby’s here.”

Her voice was light and pleasant, holding little of the depth and resonance Charoite’s possessed. Ruby still felt like it had gone right through her when she said her name, though, and went still as the Fusion turned to look at her, not sure how to act or what to say. She’d had warning when Yang and Qrow Fused. This had come out of nowhere, and somehow the idea of Yang and _Ozpin_ Fusing felt odd where it hadn’t seemed so strange with Qrow. Heck, _Qrow_ and Ozpin wouldn’t have been as weird; Ruby thought she could almost imagine how their Fusion would look. She really hoped the Fusion—gah, why hadn’t she asked Qrow about her name?—wasn’t offended.

But she just smiled at Ruby, and there was a moment both reassuring and off-putting where Ruby realised she could tell which set of eyes belonged to which Gem despite their identical shapes and colours, just based on how they changed with the Fusion’s smile. “I’m sorry, my dear, this must be quite a shock. I’m Chrysoberyl. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Well.” Her eyes darted away. “Not _meet,_ exactly; it’s impossible to ingenuously insist that I’m meeting you for the first time given my many memories of most of your life, but from your side I’m certainly a stranger so I supposed I ought to—”

“Hey!” Qrow clapped his hands together sharply, cutting Chrysoberyl off with a start. “Stop. Breathe. Don’t keep stringing words together just because you can. It’s not a conversation if the other person never gets to talk.”

She looked stricken, a deer-in-the-headlights expression that wouldn’t be at home on the faces of either of her component Gems short of receiving news that the sun would shortly be exploding, and all at once Ruby couldn’t decide if she wanted to laugh out loud or climb up onto a boulder to give her a comforting pat. “Right, yes, yeah, of course.” Chrysoberyl cleared her throat. “It’s a bad habit of mine,” she said to Ruby, rather apologetically. “I…really like words.”

“I don’t think you could survive being Ozpin _and_ Yang if you didn’t,” Ruby joked, only realising how true it was after she said it. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Chrysoberyl.”

Chrysoberyl smiled again, looking relieved.

“Right, we all done with the meet and greet?” Qrow gestured between them, scowling. “’Cause we need to get a move on. Ruby didn’t haul her ass outta bed early for nothing.”

“Oh, I don’t mind!” Ruby hastened to assure them both. “Pretty sure this is gonna be the highlight of my day of creeping through a creepy abandoned laboratory.”

Qrow looked down and muttered something she couldn’t hear, shaking his head. “All the more reason to hurry up and get it over with.”

Chrysoberyl waved her hands palms-up towards the lab door, bowing shallowly to Ruby. “After you, Ru’.”

“Oh _boy_ , how did I forget about the _rhyming?”_ Qrow sighed, rolling his eyes as he trudged past them.

Ruby frowned, but Chrysoberyl seemed unfazed, so she followed the Pearl without a word.

“So what am I supposed to do?” she asked when she got to the door. Up close, it looked pretty battered, covered in dents and scuffs. Qrow pointed to a control panel set in the rock next to it, similarly beat-up.

“You’ll input a code, 36374, and that’ll tell the scanner to look for Summer’s Gemstone. Easy.”

Ruby stared at the keypad for a long moment, two rows of four buttons marked with symbols that were only somewhat familiar to her. _Okay…is it 0 through 7 or 1 to 7 and then 0? I_ think _the upper left button is 0, so 3 should be…_

“So you gonna un-Fuse?” Qrow asked Chrysoberyl abruptly.

“Hm?” Ruby could just see her upper body turn in her peripheral vision, facing Qrow. “I hadn’t planned to, no.”

Hesitantly, Ruby keyed in the code, breathing a sigh of relief when the panel hummed to life after she finally pressed the button on the lower left. A brilliant beam of white light shot out, striking her Gem, reflecting and refracting dazzling rainbow fire. She started to speak, convey her success, but Qrow was talking again.

“But wasn’t this just to, y’know, smash up all this junk out here faster? C’mon. How’re you gonna get around inside?”

“Merlot might not have built it to a Diamond’s scale, but it’s still a Gem facility, Qrow.” Chrysoberyl’s voice had taken on a familiar measured lilt, vowels subtly rounder, syllables a little more crisp. “I assure you, there’s plenty of room in there. Haven’t you been inside before?”

“Well, yeah, but who knows if—?”

“You expect me to do all the heavy lifting and then leave so you can have all the fun without me?” Chrysoberyl laughed. The eerie impression that Ozpin was somehow speaking directly through her had gone. “Shame on you.”

Qrow started to say something else, but the panel _blipped_ loudly and then a loud rumbling groan of machinery filled the canyon, the door slowly rising up and rolling back just like the garage door it so resembled.

“I got it,” Ruby announced belatedly.

“Well then. Shall we?” Chrysoberyl asked, leading the way into the dark maw in the canyon wall. As soon as she stepped inside, dim blue strip lighting flared to life along the walls, revealing a short, steep ridged-metal ramp that led to an artificial cavern—a hangar, if Ruby was identifying some of the larger machine parts she could see in there correctly, though she couldn’t spot a single intact vehicle.

“Oooh, shiny.” Ruby grinned. “Come on, Qrow, we got a mad scientist’s lair to raid!”

 _“Raid?”_ Qrow was still grumbling as he followed them both in. “Can’t _raid_ an empty building, what’s it gonna do, _echo_ at us?”

Ruby sidled close to Chrysoberyl, speaking softly. “Has he been grumpy like this all day?”

Puzzled, Chrysoberyl shook her head. “No, though he did grow progressively more irritated as our attempts to access the lab failed. Understandable. Yang wasn’t exactly happy about it either, and Ozpin was frustrated enough to suggest Fusion by the time Qrow left to fetch you.”

Ruby watched as Qrow worked to jam a length of rebar under the door to hold it open, swearing under his breath the whole time. “This feels like more than that.”

“It could be me,” Chrysoberyl ventured. “Normally it takes longer to get under his skin, but normally he’s not in a mood to begin. Oh! Here.” Chrysoberyl took the rebar from Qrow and drove it into the ground at an angle, bracing it hard against the vertical track. “There, that’s better.”

“I had it,” Qrow insisted.

“I could see that,” Chrysoberyl replied dryly.

Qrow jammed his hands in his pockets and started walking toward the back of the hangar, shoulders rolled forward, chin tucked down.

“I think I made it worse,” Chrysoberyl whispered to Ruby.

“Oh boy.”

“Come on, get a move on, you two!” Qrow snapped.

Ruby cringed. “This is starting to feel like the _Lamp_ mission all over again.”

Chrysoberyl shook her head in bemusement. “Well, once I figure out what I’m doing wrong, I’ll stop,” she murmured. “I definitely don’t want to draw out any drama.”

“Maybe it’s not you?”

The Fusion hummed softly in response, noncommittal as could be. As she’d predicted, she had no trouble navigating the corridors of the lab complex, dim metal-and-concrete tunnels cut a good foot or so higher than her head and wide enough to pass for a one-lane road. Soft lighting in blue and green shades dappled every surface, making it hard for Ruby to focus on anything without a lot of squinting.

_I’m walking away from this with a headache._

“Why is it so dark in here?” she complained.

“Basically, the place is running on power-save mode,” Chrysoberyl explained. “Not unlike Beacon at the moment. Individual rooms should be better-lit, or at least have manual lighting controls we can adjust.”

“‘Should’?”

“Well, technically, I’ve never been here before. And neither has Yang, so you might say I only half-remember it.” Attempting, poorly, to hide her grin, she glanced over at Ruby, who squinted at her mistrustfully.

“Do _all_ of Yang’s Fusions have a weird obsession with puns?”

“Only the good ones. But _obsession_ is an awfully negative word. I like _appreciation_ better. Or _affinity.”_

Ruby sighed, rolling her eyes but smiling a little. “And I’m gonna guess all of Ozpin’s have an allergy to straight answers.”

“Oh, Heliodor was a bit oblique by nature, true—quite sweet, but a quiet, pensive thing. On the other hand, you have Serpentine, who can be almost _painfully_ straightforward—”

“Could be.”

Ruby jerked her head to look at Qrow. He was looking straight ahead as he walked, not even glancing at Chrysoberyl even though he’d cut her off.

“I’m sorry?” Chrysoberyl sounded a little taken aback.

“Serpentine _could be_ straightforward. He could also be an absolute bastard. Emphasis on ‘could’.” Qrow snorted. “Think someone who says she _likes words_ so much could figure out how verb tenses work.”

Hurt flashed over Chrysoberyl’s face. “Qrow—”

“This should be it, right?” Qrow veered off towards a door on the left-hand side of the hall, which opened on approach. “’Least this is where Summer and I always found him. Worth a shot.”

“Oh, _hell,”_ Chrysoberyl muttered as he walked in without a backward glance. “It _is_ me.”

“I don’t understand. What’s he mad about? Who’s Serpentine? Is that—was Mom part of that Fusion?” It was the only thing Ruby could figure that explained why Qrow was set off so badly by just a casual reference to him. Though shouldn’t Serpentine be a ‘they’, then? But Chrysoberyl was a ‘she’, so…?

“I…” Chrysoberyl exhaled sharply. “I feel like I should know why he’s upset, but I don’t. He _can’t_ be mad about Serpentine; he wasn’t even _here._ I don’t know if I’m not understanding, or if there’s knowledge that didn’t make it through Fusing that would explain it, or—you know what, maybe Qrow’s just being an ass,” she snapped, shaking her head. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

She swept through the high doorway in a huff, leaving Ruby stunned at her sudden shift in mood. Or maybe not so sudden, if you added up everything Qrow had said and done since encountering Chrysoberyl and assumed each tiny barb had found its mark after all, despite the Fusion’s seeming obliviousness at first. Qrow’s last remark had clearly cut. Maybe she was just hitting the limits of her patience.

Ruby wished Weiss were here. Weiss would have ideas. And she’d be just as confused as Ruby, without the emotional stakes Chrysoberyl had in the situation.

_Oh boy. Into the enclosed space with my angry family I go…_

Someone had turned up the lights by the time Ruby entered the room, and she wasn’t about to ask who: if the silence were any frostier, she’d need more than her hoodie to keep warm. The room was actually only a little chill, though, as might be expected of the inside of a metal box buried under layers of earth and stone. Something about it felt familiar.

She placed it a moment later: Ozpin’s workroom, sterile in the cold light, laid out in metal and sleek white polymers with one large plate-glass window overlooking a vast, dark chamber in place of the two that looked out on the back yard. Powered-down devices reminiscent of the monitoring station beneath Haven crowded the surface of the long worktable on Ruby’s right, a long-empty chair of the same uncomfortable design as Glynda’s sitting at an angle in front of it. More machines stood silent beneath a large screen on the left wall, but these were more familiar, like squat versions of the fancy server banks you saw in crime thrillers and heist movies.

“Wait, since when do Gems use actual _screens?”_ she asked suddenly, forgetting herself; both Chrysoberyl and Qrow looked around to where she was pointing. “I thought it was holograms or nothing!”

“Yeah, we like our tech cordless, too,” Qrow said gruffly, kicking at the mess of cables crossing the floor, “but Merlot was a paranoid bastard. If a screen stops showing what it’s supposed to be showing, either it’s lost signal or it’s broken. And you can’t lose a signal through a cable.”

“Like using a LAN cable instead of a wireless internet connection,” Ruby guessed, nodding to herself; her _Final Round 3_ KDR had been crippled by lag until Velvet and the rest of the guild nagged her into switching. Which meant the household router now lived on Ruby’s desk, and Yang just had to deal with it.

“Exactly.”

“Bismuths are closer to blacksmiths or construction workers than engineers,” Chrysoberyl said. “Craftsmen, not scientists. Merlot thrived in his new role, but the solidity and reliability of older technology appealed to him. He tended to incorporate those principles into his designs, this room included.”

Ruby thought of the rounded lines of the Forever Fall drone, the whole sleek, minimalist vibe it gave off. This place…didn’t really look like its owner would have built something like that, and Chrysoberyl’s testimony hadn’t exactly contradicted that impression. Still, it was the best lead they had, and the weird sense of _relief_ Qrow and Ozpin clearly felt at the thought of having such a cut-and-dried solution to their puzzle really made her want this to pan out. Then all the horrible edgy tension of the summer so far could drain away and Ruby’s family could go back to normal.

“Alright.” Ruby clapped her hands together. “Tell me what I’m looking for.”

* * *

Parts, schematics, records. That was what she was looking for. Mostly the former two, since she was once again in a position where she couldn’t read the language. Qrow seemed to have the whole records thing in the bag, anyway, since most of Merlot’s files were digital. He’d barely moved from his spot in front of the screen, scanning the information scrolling over its surface with a look of dissatisfaction on his face. It had to be a pretty boring job.

For her part, Chrysoberyl was at the workbench, all four of her hands busy with Gem datapads, devices, and a few sheafs of what sure looked like old paper—there wasn’t a mote of dust in the entire room, which must have been hermetically sealed all this time. Her component Gems had gotten the best and only look at the intact drone, and Ozpin had certainly spent enough time poking at its remains for Chrysoberyl to have an idea how its blueprints would look or what kind of notes might have been scribbled down about it. She didn’t seem to be making much progress, frowning deeply as she sifted through new material pulled from drawers and tugged out from underneath clutter.

It didn’t escape Ruby’s notice that their respective jobs let them keep their backs to one another. That put her between them in more ways than one, looking through the crates tucked haphazardly against the wall beneath the window. Most of it looked like raw materials and tools: loops of wire and filament, pouches of screws and bolts, a power drill that she was definitely going to ask if she could take home. She’d figure out what to use it for later. Maybe rescue some of the junk outside and put up a swingset in the back yard! Was Weiss too old for swings? Well, Yang would hang out with her, at least.

“Aargh!” Qrow growled, banging his fist against the computer’s control panel. “This is useless. There’s _thousands_ of files, most of ’em labelled with either project numbers or dates, and there’s no catalogue or calendar or anything to tell me what any of it is!”

“Try focusing on dates after Pink Diamond’s defeat,” Chrysoberyl suggested, not looking away from her own task. “Scapolite was most likely seized in the initial retreat. He could count on the chaos to cover her capture, rather than raise alarm by appropriating a prisoner.”

“Just talk _normally,_ for _once,”_ Qrow groaned.

“Did you understand what I said?” she asked patiently. _Very_ patiently.

“Oh, great,” Ruby sighed, rubbing her eyes. _It’s too early for this._

“Yeah, I’m not stupid, Chry, thanks for asking.”

“So clearly coherence isn’t a concern,” Chrysoberyl said coolly, still not looking at him. “Kindly keep your criticism constructive, Qrow.”

A loud, ringing clatter cut off anything Qrow might have had to say in reply. The Gems froze. Ruby jumped.

“What the heck was that!?”

“Someone else is in here,” Qrow said grimly.

“Or some _thing_. An animal or even a small monster could have followed us in.” Chrysoberyl set down her handfuls of material and approached the door, Yang’s gauntlets appearing around her upper set of wrists. “You two stay here and sustain the search. I should be enough to handle whatever’s waiting.”

“No way. The way this place echoes, who knows what direction that came from? We should split up.”

“I know exactly which direction it came from.” Chrysoberyl gestured at the back window. “The rooms are all soundproofed. We could only have heard something through the glass. I’ll turn on a light when I get down there. You can see for yourself whether I need backup.”

“Oh, I’m sure you won’t,” Qrow sighed, turning back to the screen.

“It’s unlikely,” Chrysoberyl agreed, and left without another word.

“Okay,” Ruby said loudly, dropping everything back into the crate in front of her. She shuffled around on her knees until she was looking over at Qrow. “Spill.”

He barely glanced at her. “Should be more careful with that. Who knows what kinda crap Merlot tossed in there?”

“Unless one of those things is some kind of—magical—” she struggled for the right word “— _pissiness_ signal, I don’t care! …Wait, you mean like bombs and stuff?”

“Bombs, Dust, acid, deadly neurotoxin…”

Ruby peered into the crate, alarmed. “No,” she decided, “I think we’re good. Qrow! Look at me!”

“We’re supposed to be _sustaining the search,_ remember?”

Narrowing her eyes, Ruby braced her hands on her legs and stood. “You know, Chrysoberyl has no idea why you’re angry at her.”

“I’m not angry at her,” Qrow snapped. “I’m just not in the mood for her brand of bullshit today. It’s like she’s got a compulsion to be as annoying as possible.”

“Oh, come on. I’ve seen you sit tight through Yang and Dad’s pun wars. You just roll your eyes and make fun of them.” Ruby crossed her arms. “So, are you gonna stick with the ‘irrational hatred of alliteration’ story, or are you gonna tell me what’s really going on?”

“I—!” Qrow squeezed his eyes shut, letting his hands go still on the control unit. “I just don’t see why they thought they had to Fuse. It wasn’t necessary. But, fine, so they wanted to actually get something done before we got there, whatever, I get it. Except Chrysoberyl can’t get it through her _charmingly offbeat head_ that she’s not needed anymore. Yang and Ozpin are. This is a project we needed _eyes_ on, dammit.”

“Doesn’t Chrysoberyl have the same number of eyes as both of them? And hands?”

Qrow verbally flailed for a moment. “Yeah, but only one _mind._ She can still only do one job at a time.”

“Yang hasn’t gotten any better at reading Gem glyphs than she was last week. She’d just be stuck going through crates with me, and then we’d be out of things to do and waiting on you and Ozpin.”

The Pearl glared at her. Ruby refused to flinch. “So Chrysoberyl didn’t do anything to upset you. Or make you mad by _not_ doing something. So unless you’re mad at her for _existing—”_

“Look, we just don’t get along, okay? She’s not just Yang and Ozpin. She’s Yang and Ozpin’s relationship.” His hands clenched into fists. “Sometimes _bickering personified_ isn’t the most _fun_ company. She’s got a long fuse, but a hell of a temper at the other end of it.”

“Which is why you’re provoking her?” Ruby suggested dryly. “Doesn’t seem like a great plan.” She didn’t think Qrow was _lying,_ exactly; she’d never seen Ozpin and Yang reach the point of an out-and-out row, but they certainly had their disagreements. But even if Ruby didn’t have her entire lifetime of knowing them to fall back on, the simple fact that Chrysoberyl _wasn’t_ a sentient heap of aggression gave away that their bond was, for the most part, an amiable one. From what she understood about Fusion, Chrysoberyl would have had serious, obvious trouble staying, well, _Chrysoberyl_ if her component Gems were truly embittered, especially with Qrow needling her the whole time…

“Qrow?” Her voice was very small. “Were you trying to break Chrysoberyl’s Fusion?”

 _“What?”_ Qrow gaped at her. “No! No, I wouldn’t…I wasn’t…” He looked away. “I didn’t think about it like that.”

“But that’s it, isn’t it! You’re really not angry at Chrysoberyl! Yang and Ozpin Fusing is what set you off!” Ruby shook her head, bewildered, as the stricken look on Qrow’s face only confirmed it. “I don’t understand.”

“Ruby,” Qrow said sternly. “Just drop it, okay?”

“You and Yang were so happy when you realised you could still Fuse! And Ozpin was happy _for_ you!”

“Ruby…!”

She shook her head again, harder, refusing. “No! I don’t get it! Why wouldn’t you want that for them?”

“Because it _doesn’t make sense!”_ Qrow shouted, slamming his fist against the control panel, denting it.

Ruby recoiled, and so did Qrow, looking down at his own hand as if shocked to see it.

“They’re family,” Ruby said quietly. “Doesn’t that make enough sense?” She remembered her own surprise and uncertainty on seeing Chrysoberyl, how she’d thought that of all the possible Fusions her family could form she was the strangest combination. Qrow knew better, though. Qrow had recognised the Fusion’s voice, known her name and her pronouns and her quirks. Qrow knew _her._

Qrow huffed out a mirthless laugh. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” He wasn’t looking at her. Wasn’t looking at anything. He sounded distant. “You’re right, I should be happy. It’s good. It’s a good thing. Means none of us broke too bad after all. I thought Oz…”

“You thought Oz what?”

“Nothing. Doesn’t matter. I was wrong. What the hell’s taking her so long, anyway?” Qrow demanded, walking right past Ruby to the darkened window.

She wouldn’t get any more out of him, she could tell. If it came down to it, he’d just ignore her.

_So it’s about Ozpin. Fusing. Or being able to Fuse? Fusing with Yang?_

Ruby frowned, studying the Pearl’s profile while he pretended not to notice.

“Are you…jealous?”

She thought she might have heard a snort, but as she’d predicted, he gave no reply. So Ruby did the only thing she could, which was to join him by the window and wait. And hug him. She did that, too. He didn’t relax, didn’t even look down at her, but he did unfold his arms so that he could pat her gently on the back before she pulled away.

* * *

Chrysoberyl moved as quietly as she could down the corridor, stopping just briefly to peer into each door she passed in case the intruder was trying to slip away past her. A delay, yes, but a worthwhile one; she couldn’t be certain the surveillance system was still online after so long without maintenance, and if there was anyone here worth noting, she’d only know it after coming face-to-face with them.

The entrance to the lab Merlot had personally used for his large-scale projects wasn’t far from his office, but due to its scale, ‘not far’ still meant ‘down a long hallway, around a corner, and down a staircase’, with a half-dozen storerooms in-between—the technicians and scientists working under Merlot had been stationed in a different part of the complex, as much for safety as to satisfy Merlot’s particularities about the layout of his workspace. Chrysoberyl could _almost_ remember a Gem with a mane of iridescent silver hair and a matching trimmed beard explaining rather peevishly why no, he _wouldn’t_ consider a gantry or something to connect his office and lab.

_“And if something goes awry in the lab? An explosion, a chemical leak? I lose all my work in one swoop, and where will your precious Rebellion be then!? Go stick some pins in a map or whatever it is you do all day!”_

There was a distant sense of fond exasperation tied to the memory fragment, and a cynical, bleak sort of humour. Merlot had been entirely prescient, as it turned out. The only point he’d gotten wrong was in assuming he’d be alive to reap the benefits of his foresight. The thought itched and ached like a fresh scar.

She stumbled a little on the stairs, thrown off by the slight stoop she needed to clear the stairwell ceiling and by the sudden, disorienting divide cracking open in her/their thoughts as

 _Yang seethed, scornful of this Gem whose so-called_ loyalty _was just self-interest hitched to the most promising cause he could find, repulsed by his lack of respect for life and liberty,_ furious _at the thought of what Scapolite had suffered, at the memory of fearful, hunted yellow eyes_

_Ozpin brooded, unsurprised but disappointed in a Gem who had given so much of himself but taken so much from others, sick and afraid at the thought of being trapped and used and helpless, guilty over his selfish wish that Merlot had survived, guiltier still for his conflicted relief that he had not_

“Keep it together,” Chrysoberyl whispered, closing her eyes and focusing as hard as she could on herself, her own thoughts and feelings, the immutable knowledge that she _Was._ “Just keep it together.”

She’d never been the most stable Fusion, she knew that. Far too often, instead of being a coherent gestalt of her component Gems, one or the other of them would come to the forefront, especially in circumstances like these: Ozpin knew this place and the ghosts that haunted it, and Yang didn’t, putting her at a disadvantage. And then there were moments like this one, where their individual opinions and emotions were so drastically and strongly opposed that they drowned Chrysoberyl out entirely, betrayed a difference too great for the living bridge of her consciousness to span.

Maybe Qrow was right, and she should have un-Fused. But Yang and Ozpin had both been dreading going in, just a little, for different reasons, and Chrysoberyl had been intrigued. She could never pass up a chance to explore someplace new. Or new-ish, in this case, but so what if she knew the layout? There was still no telling what she could find, what secrets or gadgets or new mysteries she might uncover.

Well, she’d found a mystery, alright. The mystery of where the massive chip on Qrow’s shoulder had come from. And she had a feeling that if she didn’t get a move on, he’d find a way to literally chuck said metaphorical chip directly at her face.

Fortunately, she was almost there, only a few paces separating the base of the stairs from the doors to the lab. Well, probably more than a few, for most people. But Chrysoberyl had crossed the distance in no time, bending to press her ear against the seam of the doors, which were warped slightly so that there was a small gap between them at the top. They bore the clear hallmarks of fire damage—they must have served to contain the worst of the blast that had ended Merlot’s life and destroyed his final projects, at the cost of their own functionality; they did not open as Chrysoberyl leaned close.

The noises she could hear through the door were discrete and repetitive—ratcheting, at first, and then the unmistakable sound of a small power tool, ending any hope Chrysoberyl had that their mysterious intruder wasn’t some stripe of sapient being. Well, if it was a Gem, better to go in while they had their hands full. And if it was an organic, there wasn’t much they could do against a Fusion of her size, drill or no drill.

Chrysoberyl slipped her fingers into the gap between the doors and yanked, adding the other pair of hands once there was enough room. It only took a little effort to pry the doors open, giving the intruder no warning worth mentioning before Chrysoberyl swept inside as imperiously as she could, Ozpin’s muscle memory letting her flick on the lights without looking.

“Ouch!” the intruder exclaimed, throwing an arm up in front of their face. They wore a slim visor over their eyes; not a welding mask, but a device that in context Chrysoberyl would have to assume was meant to boost night vision. Troublingly, she didn’t recognise the tech on sight. More troubling still, what she could see of the intruder’s face was the vivid, slightly yellowish green of young clover, as were their hands. They were a Gem. Chrysoberyl shoved aside her building sense of unease.

“Well, that at least explains how you were able to work without light,” Chrysoberyl said coolly, folding one set of hands behind her back and crossing her other arms over her chest. Glancing up at the office window—it was polarised to look dark from this angle, even with the lights on—she stepped forward towards the Gem, pivoting slightly so her back was visible from above in case she needed to signal. “You realise you’re trespassing?—and stealing, and developing unauthorised technology,” she added, nodding towards the incomplete drone which rested in front of the Gem, on a rather wobbly stool whose legs were all melted to some degree.

The lab really was a mess—enough that Chrysoberyl couldn’t begin to guess what had caused the noise that tipped them off, because honestly what _wasn’t_ on the floor?—and the trespassing Gem hadn’t helped. Most of the identifiable tools scattered around were in excellent condition, clearly brought in from outside rather than rescued from the ruins.

“Oh, but I am authorised!” the Gem chirped, lowering their arm—her arm, Chrysoberyl decided, on seeing her features. She could apologise later if she was wrong. The other Gem tapped the side of her visor with her free hand (the other still held something resembling a drill) and the narrow screen of tinted light arcing in front of her eyes vanished, revealing them to be a brilliant spring green. She peered curiously at Chrysoberyl. “Are you? I don’t recognise your conformation. In fact, you _appear_ to be a Fusion! Cross-type, maybe even cross-caste!”

Which should not be remarkable to a Remnan Gem. Not in the slightest.

“I have all the authorisation I need,” Chrysoberyl said. “Who are you, what are you doing here, and how did you get in?” _And what exactly are the specifications of that drone you’re building, because it’s honestly brilliant—no, not relevant._

The Gem frowned, tilting her head. Chrysoberyl still couldn’t see her Gemstone, and while green Gems were relatively uncommon, there wasn’t much about her to narrow down the possibilities. She didn’t have the shape of a Jade, her colouring was too uniform for a Sphene, and she didn’t have _nearly_ enough of an attitude to be an Emerald. “I don’t know if I should tell you. I certainly don’t know who _you_ are.”

“Chrysoberyl. Fusion,” she identified herself curtly.

“As suspected!” The Gem beamed. “Peridot, Facet 10, Cut 3, I, X.” She sounded her designation out proudly.

Chrysoberyl’s unease threatened to break out into genuine fear. “Facet _Ten?”_

“Oh, not _Homeworld,”_ Peridot hastened to clarify. “I could wish! No, I’m from Theta Blue. What about you?” she asked, setting down her tools. “Are you a native of this planet?”

“I am.” _Well, Yang is, and since I can’t exist without her, I suppose it counts._

“I see. That explains it, then,” she said to herself. “I’m very sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’m working on a very important project at the moment. You could come back later, if you wanted! I wouldn’t mind the company.”

Chrysoberyl was thrown. Peridot identified herself like a Homeworld Gem, wore the utilitarian garb of an Authority technician, and had commandeered a Rebellion lab to build reconnaissance drones—but she was also being civil towards a cross-caste Fusion, and apparently wanted to schedule a social visit.

“I’m afraid I can’t leave until I know what you’re doing,” she said, and the apologetic tone was only somewhat feigned—it was very hard to be rude to someone who was plainly at least trying to be polite, even if she was also breaking and entering. “You see, we have a claim to the complex. _You_ are the one with no legal right to be here.”

“Well, _I’m_ afraid I simply can’t tell you what I’m doing. I’m operating covertly.” Peridot frowned. “I _think_ this is what’s known as a stalemate.”

Chrysoberyl twitched one of the hands behind her back in a sharp _come here_ gesture. “I think you’re right.”

“Hm. That _is_ unfortunate.”

Peridot whipped her arm back and flung the drill at Chrysoberyl—and she’d turned it on, too, so rather than try to catch or deflect it Chrysoberyl simply _moved,_ sparing a flicker of thought to regret Ozpin’s little relative-velocity trick hadn’t passed on to her. Damn. Maybe she _should_ have un-Fused. No time now, though. Yang and Ozpin would be sitting targets.

She took aim with one of Yang’s gauntlets and fired, only for Peridot to snatch the stool from in front of her and hold it like a shield, knocking her drone to the ground but blocking the worst of the shot. She flung the twisted metal away and stretched out her arms, a dozen short, single-bladed swords shimmering into being around her, connected to a point behind her by wires—her Gemstone must have been on her back. The swords floated in the air, their points trained on Chrysoberyl.

The Fusion held out her hands and called on her second weapon, focusing so that before it had fully formed it had shifted and changed to include the gauntlets: she held a pair of metal bastons, electricity arcing down their lengths. She swung them swiftly as the swords streaked towards her, tossing them between her hands as needed to turn each blade aside. She pressed forward even as she fought. Peridot stood her ground, her eyes narrowed in concentration as the swords weaved and struck in increasingly complex patterns, her hands reaching out now and again to pluck at the wires.

“Since when do Peridots carry weapons?” Chrysoberyl demanded, hoping to distract her. These blades were Bismuth-made, she’d guarantee it, and Peridot clearly knew what she was doing, but she was no Huntress, and these were not Merlot’s work. Where had she gotten them, and the training to use them?

“Oh, they’re standard issue,” Peridot said breezily, sounding far too cheerful to be in the middle of a fight. She was having to move, now, backing away from Chrysoberyl and swaying her body gently to help direct the swords. The Fusion, though still gaining ground, remained firmly on the defensive. “I’m an Era 2 Peridot. We’re combat ready!”

 _(“Imagine an_ army _of them, enough to cover your whole planet…”)_

Chrysoberyl faltered, a sword cutting a stinging line over her left arm, motes of yellow light drifting away.

 _Era 2._ The phrase pounded in her head, cold fear branding her from within, a knot in her throat like a pent-up scream was choking her—so she let it out, rage and terror alike, striking her bastons together with a sound like a thunderclap. Dropping her guard let more of the swords find their target, but a crackling ball of lightning surged from the linked tips of her weapons, shooting towards Peridot faster than she could dodge and sending her flying, her swords yanked backwards through the air with her.

Chrysoberyl didn’t feel the pain, storming towards Peridot.

_(“Someday the Authority will come back and this world is going to burn.”)_

“I do not find this _amusing,”_ she seethed. “You joke about things you _cannot_ understand, you foolish _child,_ and I will get the truth from you _however I have to!”_

Peridot stared at her wide-eyed, seeming more shocked than afraid, her swords lying still on the ground around her. “Oh my,” she breathed.

Distantly Chrysoberyl felt this was _wrong, too much, stop,_ the weight and genuine intent of her threat jarring loose a deep-seated horror at herself—but she was not divided as she had been earlier, could not say if the fury and terrible determination came from one part of herself and the revulsion and restraint from another or if she had finally locked her component Gems into sync: both of them enraged, both of them appalled, and neither of them eager to make good on her vow.

“Just _tell me who you are,”_ Chrysoberyl pleaded, tears prickling at her eyes as she pointed a baston at Peridot’s head. Her Gemstone would be safe. She’d be safe. Everyone would be _safe._

“Peridot,” she whispered. “Facet 10, Cut 3IX. All glory be to Blue Diamond.”

 _(“A war with the Diamonds isn’t over until the Diamonds_ win, _Yang!”)_

White noise overwhelmed her ears, and the acrid scent of ash filled her nostrils, even though she wasn’t breathing. Peridot didn’t move, but Chrysoberyl’s eyes darted down reflexively, expecting the salute, and—

Three diamonds on Peridot’s left sleeve, picked out in sharp relief against the grey, white, and green of her jumpsuit. Blue, yellow, white. No pink.

 _Ah,_ Ozpin thought, dazed. _It’s been revised._

That was the only warning Yang had before the dam broke, and the wave of sheer wrenching terror it had held back swept through Chrysoberyl and broke her as well, bastons vanishing, form collapsing into a shapeless pool of light as Yang tried and failed to scream through a mouth that no longer existed. Ozpin—where was Ozpin, she needed him, they had to Fuse again, there was so much of her that was still Chrysoberyl and if they couldn’t keep themselves together how could they fight what was coming? How could they survive? They were broken

_broken_

Was she breaking? Dying? She must be, she surely was, and she had failed

_can’t save anyone_

would always fail

_Useless!_

Wait—no, she wasn’t useless, she was a _badass!_ She was _Yang!_ And Ozpin was—

_It will all happen again. There will be nothing left._

—not able to come to the comm right now. Maybe she could leave a message? _Oz, please, if you can hear me…!_

But the panicked white noise was like a wall, letting fragments of his fear and despair stab out at her but blocking her attempts to reach in. So Yang pulled away instead, brutally wrenching herself free of what remained of Chrysoberyl, gritting her teeth against the agony of her mind tearing apart from Ozpin’s.

She got to her feet shakily, disoriented and sick like a concussed organic, looking around. She could only have been out of it for a few seconds tops—Qrow and Ruby weren’t here yet—but in that time Peridot had really booked it. The smaller Gem was climbing a collapsed shelving unit with the aid of her swords, reaching behind herself even as she moved to deposit a small, boxy device into the broad, triangular-cut Gemstone on her back.

“Hey!” Yang shouted. Peridot looked over her shoulder, gasped, and scrambled faster, flinging herself between the blades of a broken fan and into the large vent beyond.

“Oh no you don’t,” Yang growled, charging after her. Her limbs trembled, and she felt like there were sparks behind her eyes; the raw ache of a chipped Gemstone radiated through her entire body even though she was wholly undamaged. She _hated_ what it did to her when her Fusions destabilised. She didn’t have time to falter now, though, hauling herself up the broken shelves.

She was about to pull herself into the vent in Peridot’s wake when she saw it, just in time: a strange disc stuck to the side of the vent, a light on its side blinking rapidly.

_That’s a mine!_

“Damn it!” Yang pushed herself away from the vent and let herself fall to the floor. She hadn’t even landed yet when the bomb went off, shaking the room, knocking the frail shelving unit to pieces on the floor, and clogging the vent with debris.

“Yang?” Her name was more rasped than spoken.

She looked up to see that Ozpin had pulled himself together, if only in the most literal sense. He was trembling, barely standing, using the wall to support himself as he turned his head jerkily to glance between the destroyed vent and her prone body.

“I’m _fine,”_ she snarled, forcing herself upright. She kicked viciously at a random piece of junk, then punched the wall. She didn’t so much as dent it, so she did it again. And again. And again—!

Ozpin, meanwhile, seemed to give up on standing quite spontaneously, his back sliding down the wall as he crumpled to the floor. As if he’d been held up by strings that had finally frayed through.

* * *

They’d already been running, but when they heard a muffled explosion Ruby snatched up Qrow’s hand and burst into petals, yanking him towards the source of the noise. Probably wouldn’t have been a smart move if he were human, but his hard-light body held up to the abuse. The busted double doors seemed like a smart bet, and sure enough Ruby flowed through them and re-formed. Qrow prepared to call out his scythe, but there was no one there but Yang, pummelling the wall like it had personally offended her, and Ozpin…

He couldn’t process it for a moment. The proud Garnet was huddled against the wall not far from where Yang was assaulting it. He hadn’t curled in on himself, the way instinct would guide an organic to do, but the haphazard way he’d collapsed was almost worse. He had a hand clasped over his throat, his head bowed, and he was shivering like he was trapped at the heart of a blizzard.

Without really meaning to, Qrow breathed out an old, _old_ oath in his mother tongue. The sound, faint as it was, seemed to snap Yang out of it. She unclenched her fists, bracing her palms flat against the wall and leaning there.

“What _happened?”_ Ruby asked, and Qrow wondered if she really wanted the answer. He wasn’t sure he did. “Where’d the other Gem go?”

“She’s gone,” Yang spat, pushing herself away from the wall. She gestured up at a blasted section of wall, shaking almost as badly as Ozpin. “There was a vent. Peridot blew it up behind her.”

“Peridot?” Qrow echoed softly, almost speaking to himself. “Little short for a Peridot, wasn’t she?”

Yang shook her head violently, staggering across the room until she reached Ozpin. She dropped to the floor beside him, slumping weakly against his shoulder. That eased the worst of the trembling in both of them, and Ozpin finally lifted his head a little, looking up at Qrow as they approached.

“Not,” he said hoarsely, “perhaps, for an Era 2 Peridot.”

It took a moment to penetrate. When it did, it was accompanied by the distinct sensation of being punched in the gut. _“Fuck.”_

“Language,” Ozpin mumbled, closing his eyes and lowering his head again. He was breathing, even and slow, and it made him seem vulnerable, easily snuffed out by any of the many means that could cut off an organic’s air. Qrow didn’t like it.

“What’s—” Something caught Ruby’s eye as she picked her way over the floor. She bent down and retrieved a length of fabric—Ozpin’s scarf, Qrow realised. It must have fallen when Chrysoberyl destabilised. “What’s that mean, Era 2?”

“It means we have to stop her,” Qrow said. “Now. Can you guys move?”

“She’s from Homeworld,” Yang explained, looking at Ruby. _“Fresh_ from Homeworld. Scapolite was right. The Diamonds are coming.” Her eyes were bright with tears. “I didn’t really get why she was scared. Chrysoberyl did. Ruby, she was _so afraid._ I—I don’t want—”

“Breathe,” Ozpin told her, speaking in an exhausted monotone. “Focus on it. Count breaths. Repetition helps.”

For once, Yang did as he said without argument, and that was honestly more worrying than anything else Qrow had seen or heard in the last few minutes. Ozpin cracked his eyes open and fixed his gaze on him. “You won’t make it in time. She’s halfway to the warp by now.”

“I can make it there,” Ruby said, determined. She didn’t wait for anyone to respond, shoving Ozpin’s scarf at Qrow and taking off in a whirlwind of rose petals.

“Ruby, wait!” Qrow called, but she was already gone. “Damn it,” he sighed, turning for the door. He froze as someone caught his hand in theirs. Too large to be Yang. _Ozpin._

“I’m sorry,” the Garnet said quietly. “I didn’t think about how it would look to you. To Fuse with Yang now when we couldn’t before.”

“How it would _look?”_ Qrow repeated dully. “You’ve always had trust issues, Oz. But you used to trust _me.”_

“I still do. As much as I’ve ever trusted anyone. Fear is a poison, Qrow. Hope is its antidote. I hoped…I hoped we would find something today to put my fears to rest. I had no such hope that night. And I could not bear to pass my affliction on to you. Especially when you were so… _so_ happy to know you could Fuse with Yang again.”

“So you closed yourself off from the Fusion and let me think _I_ was the problem?” That almost stung worse than what Qrow had believed before.

“I didn’t mean to close myself off. I just wanted to push the fear aside, lock it away where Serpentine couldn’t feel it. Of course, then there wasn’t enough of me left to Fuse with you.”

Finally, Qrow let himself look at him. Ozpin’s expression wasn’t pleading, but neither was it the fixed, haughty look Qrow had half-expected, the one that meant he felt his actions were justified. He just looked…tired.

“I never meant for you to believe it was your fault we couldn’t Fuse. I certainly didn’t want to cause you to think our friendship had deteriorated so badly—that my regard for you had fallen so far that we were no longer compatible. It was never you, Qrow.” He dropped his hand. “Just a fretting old fool, unable to let go of his fears.”

“You didn’t have to let them go. I don’t need you to hide shit from me, Oz. I know how to cope.”

“Doesn’t mean you wanna have to,” Yang said, shuddering. “Negative ten out of ten, would _not_ recommend.”

Gently, Ozpin said, “That wasn’t entirely _my_ fear.”

“Yeah, I know. Guess it’s the normal kind of contagious, too, our _‘affliction’_. You, Scapolite. Me.” She sighed, closing her eyes. “Ugh. I feel _old.”_

Ozpin managed a weak smile. “Now _that_ might well be my fault.” His gaze slid back to Qrow. “…Am I forgiven?”

Qrow stood there for a moment, saying nothing. Then he knelt down and carefully looped the scarf he held around Ozpin’s neck.

“Ah, come on.” He clapped a hand on the Garnet’s shoulder and smirked. “Don’t turn sappy on me now, Oz.”

* * *

Ruby emerged into the sunlight and shot over the debris field, slipping through the cleft in the rock and retracing her steps back to the warp. Fortunately, the path didn’t have a great many twists and turns, and she remembered the splits they’d taken earlier. Soon enough, the warp was in sight, and there she was: a short green Gem who could only be Peridot, already mounting the steps. Even with her speed, Ruby wouldn’t reach her in time.

“Wait!” Ruby yelled, slamming back into her normal form so abruptly her own momentum nearly bowled her over. She stumbled, leaning over and panting. “Oh…oh man. Whew!”

She straightened up to find Peridot had actually listened to her. She stood at the centre of the warp pad, her hands clasped behind her, brilliant green eyes blinking at her in apparent fascination. Suddenly, Ruby wasn’t sure what to say.

“Uh…hello?” she tried.

“Salutations!” Peridot exclaimed, beaming. “Thank goodness. I was beginning to think my intelligence was faulty. This is the first time anyone on this planet has ever used a greeting to initiate conversation with me! Of course, this is only the third time anyone on this planet has ever initiated conversation with me. The first was a _very_ brusque Calcite who said she thought my uniform was in poor taste. I’m not sure when she had a chance to lick it without me noticing or why she chose to manifest gustatory cells for the purpose, but—”

“She meant it figuratively,” Ruby explained, feeling a little bad for cutting her off but wanting to get to the point. “When we say something’s in bad taste, we mean it’s inappropriate.”

“Oh! But that doesn’t make any sense either. I am a servant of the Diamond Authority, so my uniform is _very_ appropriate!”

“Right, but we’re…rebels. Against the Diamonds. So an Authority uniform would be kind of offensive, if she thought you were one of us.”

Peridot frowned in confusion. “No, that’s quite impossible. The Rebellion of the Last Rose was destroyed down to the last Gem at the end of the Uprising. Any Gems here on Alpha Pink should be late emergers from the Prime Kindergarten.”

 _Uprising_ had to mean the Gem War, and _Alpha Pink_ must be Homeworld’s name for Remnant. But why would they think… “You were told the Rebellion was completely wiped out?”

She nodded. “Oh, yes. I was personally briefed by Blue Diamond, and He was very clear on that point.”

 _That makes no sense._ “But—we _won_ the war—the Uprising. If you thought _you_ won, why did you leave?”

Peridot beamed. “An excellent question, and one I asked myself! The Great Diamond Authority intended that the corrupted Gems inhabiting Alpha Pink should help cull the infestation of native organics.”

“So…we didn’t drive Homeworld off.” Or maybe Blue Diamond had lied to Peridot, maybe it was all just a story—but the sinking feeling in Ruby’s gut told her this new piece of information fit a little too neatly into the puzzle to be counterfeit. “They only left because they thought they’d won. That the Rebels were all corrupted.”

“Or shattered! Correct! Although now that you mention it, if Calcite hadn’t been a Rebel, it would have been very odd for her to comment on my uniform based on your explanation.” Peridot frowned again, curving her lips so far it looked like she was pouting. “But the Diamonds are our creators and rightful rulers. Rebelling against Them sounds like it tastes much worse than my uniform.”

“Look, forget about your uniform!”

“That will be difficult. I wear it constantly, so I’m often reminded of its existence.”

Ruby took a deep breath. “Okay,” she told herself. _It doesn’t matter. However the war ended, it doesn’t matter. It’s over, and it needs to stay that way._ “Listen—Peridot, right?”

“Peridot 3IX, at your service! Figuratively speaking. I do not actually serve you.”

“Peridot, why don’t you come back down here and we can talk? Please?”

“But we are talking. Can you not hear me? I can speak up!”

“No, no, I mean…” Wow, she had _really_ underestimated the amount of information Scapolite had unconsciously assimilated over her time as the Record’s processing core. Peridot was clearly having a much steeper learning curve. “I want to have a discussion with you. About why you’re here and—and if there’s any way we can get along? You know, not fight each other and just…be friends?”

Naïve, maybe, and overly-optimistic, but right now Ruby just wanted Peridot to stay and talk. She didn’t exactly have anything to bargain with. So asking nicely was really the only thing to do.

“Friends…” Peridot said the word like she was testing it, tilting her head consideringly. The way her olive-green hair fell let Ruby notice it was slightly curly, especially at the ends. It was cute. Peridot, in general, was cute—and she was also the reason two of the strongest people Ruby knew were currently shivering in a huddle on the floor, which didn’t seem fair. She could at least have put in the effort to _look_ like a harbinger of doom.

“That’s another word for ‘allies’, isn’t it?” Peridot’s expression turned contrite. “I’m sorry, but the Diamond Authority doesn’t have allies. There are only those who walk in the light of Their perfection and those who serve as obstacles to be removed from Their path.”

“Oh,” Ruby said, a little taken aback by her matter-of-fact tone. “That’s okay. I wasn’t offering to join Homeworld’s army anyway.”

“Then I’m afraid we’re going to have to be enemies for now,” Peridot informed her. “Maybe we can revisit the subject after our glorious conquest of your planet! Assuming you survive, of course. I hope you do. You seem like a very pleasant person! Good luck!”

She waved cheerfully, and before Ruby had quite processed that the conversation was over she’d warped away without a trace.

* * *

Ruby walked back to the lab, rather than using her speed. She wanted a little time to think before she went back underground. Staring at her feet as they scuffed over the ground, she almost walked directly into Qrow, who was approaching at a run from the other direction.

“Sorry!” she exclaimed reflexively, taking a step back.

Qrow barely acknowledged it. “Peridot?”

“Gone.” Ruby sighed. “She beat me there. I got her to stop and tried to talk to her, but…she acted like I was speaking gibberish. I couldn’t get to her before she activated the warp.”

“Damn it.” Qrow shook his head. “It was worth a shot. You get anything outta her?”

 _Besides the fact she thinks we lost the war?_ “Uh…” Ruby wracked her brain for anything that seemed useful. “I don’t think she’s been here long. She spoke good Valean but I know you guys learn languages really fast, and there were some figures of speech she didn’t get. Um, she mentioned talking to a Calcite at one point? Feminine. I don’t think it was a real conversation, but maybe we could use that to re-trace her steps?”

Qrow frowned. “Maybe. Calcites are pretty common, though. Even with how few Gems there are on Remnant, it’d still take awhile to figure out which one Peridot talked to, and that’s assuming we could even find her in the first place. Not every Gem has a stable address, or a scroll.”

“Oh.” Ruby started walking again; Qrow had half-turned away from her while he spoke, looking back towards the lab, and she wasn’t so distracted she couldn’t read that cue.

“If you’re right about her not having been here long enough to pick up idiom, though, that puts her making planetfall within the last year. Someone musta seen _something.”_ He slapped her lightly on the back. “Good catch.”

She smiled, but it felt awkward and fake, so she let it slip away again. “Thanks.”

“…Ruby—”

“How are Yang and Ozpin?”

Ruby could see Qrow wanted to protest, but she knew he wouldn’t brush aside her concern for the sake of his own. She knew how to deflect questions she wasn’t ready to answer. She’d learned from the best.

“Better. Still kinda shaky, but Ozpin was more alert and Yang was a lot less mood swing-y by the time I left ’em.”

“What happened to them that made them so…” All of the words Ruby could think of scared her a little, because they weren’t supposed to apply to her Gem family. She wasn’t supposed to have to worry about them like she did about her dad, or Weiss, or Jaune and Pyrrha.

Qrow understood what she meant. “Traumatic de-Fusion. Normally, a Fusion chooses to un-Fuse, and the Gems come apart as easy as they went together in the first place. No fuss, no muss. But sometimes there’s a whole lotta fuss, and what you saw in there was the muss. That even a real word?” He shook his head. “Whatever. Fusions that break down or get broken apart rather than choosing to split up again, they have a rough go of it, and the Gems who were part of them get to deal with the fallout. Good old-fashioned psychic backlash. It’s not fun.”

“So…even though Yang and Ozpin are used to being separate people, because _Chrysoberyl_ is a single person, the Fusion breaking like that hurt her and now they’re feeling her pain?”

“Hers, theirs, and a bit of each other’s, based on how they were glommed onto each other back there. You don’t always get a clean break with an unstable Fusion, so you’ll see Gems who’ve just gotten out of one either staying way the hell away from each other or sticking _real_ close.” He snorted, stepping into the shade of the lab’s entry tunnel. “Yang’s normally in camp _get away,_ but I guess she was pretty shaken-up.”

“Can you blame her?” Ruby asked quietly.

He shook his head, burying his hands in his pockets. “No.”

“Is it really happening?” Her voice wavered. She swallowed. “Is there gonna be another war?”

 _“No,”_ he said again, more forcefully. “We’re not gonna let it get that far. We can still fix this. It’s gonna be okay.”

“Okay,” Ruby whispered, taking a deep breath. “Okay.”

* * *

They got back to find Yang lifting half of a pitted lab bench off the floor, peering under it before letting out a dissatisfied snort and dropping it again. She moved on to the next bit of debris large enough to plausibly be hiding something. For his part, Ozpin was standing in front of a cracked, sparking terminal, leaning heavily on his cane and frowning at a glitching holo-interface that showed a Gem Ruby assumed must be Merlot, based on context and the angular metallic Gemstone he had in place of his left eye. He had facial hair too, like, a lot of it, which was pretty weird for a Gem now Ruby thought about it. Although Qrow…eh, did that really count?

Snippets of the Gem language spouted from the recording as it shuddered, and from Ozpin’s vexed expression, Ruby thought for once she was understanding exactly as much of it as he was.

“Any luck?” Qrow asked.

 _“Zilch,”_ Yang informed him, sounding more resigned than anything. “You either?”

“Wasn’t quite fast enough,” Ruby admitted.

Qrow jerked his chin towards the glowing, shuddering bust of Merlot. “What’s up with that?”

“Yang saw Peridot in possession of what she believes was a storage drive when she fled. I’m inclined to agree with her, though I can’t imagine where she must have plugged it in down here. This is the only terminal that would even turn on, and I haven’t found a single intact file so far. All the data seems to have been damaged in one way or another,” Ozpin reported.

“Can you fix it?”

“Can I—” Ozpin gave him a Look over his glasses. “No, Qrow, I cannot _fix_ it. It’s not a—a stopped clock or a broken firing mechanism. Even if I _did_ have more than a rudimentary understanding of software coding or computer science in general, I’m not sure I could.”

“I didn’t know,” Qrow said defensively. “You’re good with computers.”

“If by that you mean I can _use_ a computer…”

“Well. Yeah. Okay.”

“Don’t look at me,” Yang called. “Same boat. Motors yes, binary no.”

Well, that answered the question of where she’d sourced her information on artificial intelligence.

“I doubt she can have made much use of this, anyway,” Ozpin went on. “And since the vent led directly to the surface and the doors leading to the rest of the lab were inoperable and intact, I can only assume whatever was on that drive came from elsewhere, and was brought here so that she could review it while she worked. Perhaps on a portable terminal, or that visor she was using for night vision. There’s no telling what sort of technology she has at her disposal. If Era 2 Gems are so different from their older counterparts, I can only imagine what changes and advancements have been made elsewhere.”

“Ain’t that a scary thought,” Qrow muttered.

“You said that before, Era 2,” Ruby said. “What does that mean?”

“Era 1 is said to have begun when the Diamond Authority first successfully expanded their empire past their home star system,” Ozpin explained. “Or upon the creation of the fourth and final Diamond, depending on whom you ask. The events were roughly concurrent. Era 2 began with Pink Diamond’s defeat. No Era 2 Gems could have possibly emerged in time to participate in the war and become stranded on Remnant, and so…”

“…since Peridot is an Era 2 Gem, she had to have come to Remnant after the war ended,” Ruby finished, nodding.

“Precisely.”

“Speaking of the end of the war,” Ruby began through a knot in her throat.

“Yes?” Ozpin prompted, cocking his head.

“We…we did _win,_ right?”

“What’re you talking about, Ruby?” Yang asked, frowning.

“According to Peridot, the Diamonds say the Rebellion was completely wiped out. Every last Gem.”

“So they’ve got a good propaganda machine.” Yang shrugged, rolling her eyes. “Put another point in the totalitarian dictatorship column.”

“Is it true?” Ruby demanded, looking between Ozpin and Qrow. “Did they only leave because they thought there was no one left to fight?”

The silence was _almost_ too long. It was Qrow who broke it. “To tell you the truth, kiddo, we were never sure.”

Ruby let out a ragged breath. “But you suspected.”

“It was the likeliest theory,” Ozpin said, the exhaustion of earlier seeping back into his voice. “One we never dared discard. But as centuries went by and Homeworld’s armies never returned…we let ourselves hope. The war was over, and we were alive, and free. We decided it was victory enough.”

Yang stared at them both. “…And no one ever mentioned this to me, once, _ever,_ in four _thousand_ years, because…?”

“Honestly? Because it had already been almost two thousand years, and no one wanted to talk about it anymore.” Qrow shrugged helplessly. “We weren’t tryin’ to hide it from ya. If we were, you really think we’d have told you _any_ of the story? You knew we rode out the Corruption inside Beacon, you knew Homeworld was responsible _for_ the Corruption…”

“So it’s _our_ fault for not filling in the blanks?” Yang demanded.

“No. But the blanks were there to be filled; we’d have to be idiots to leave all that information out there if we really wanted to make sure no one could piece together what happened. It was never meant to be a secret, Yang, I promise.”

“You covered up the end of the Gem War on _accident,”_ Ruby said slowly, just to clarify.

“There are hundreds of Gems on Remnant,” Ozpin pointed out. “Do you really think that many people can keep a secret on _purpose?”_

Which was a surprisingly compelling argument. Yang and Ruby exchanged conflicted looks.

“I can’t figure out if I should be mad or not,” Yang admitted.

“So this means that if Peridot gets a chance to report home that there are surviving Rebels…” Ruby let the sentence hang.

“That would probably be bad, yeah. Thankfully this whole planet is a giant communications blackout. _Welp,_ guess I’m adding spaceships to my list of things to scour the planet for,” Qrow said grimly, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Awesome. Don’t suppose I can delegate some of this crap?”

“Without causing a panic?” Ozpin asked. “Huntsmen are incurable gossips, Qrow. You don’t need me to tell you that.”

“We _are_ Huntsmen.”

“And that is precisely how I know our order is a glorified knitting circle. You won’t be entirely alone in your search, you know. I don’t intend to simply sit around waiting at home.”

“I’m gonna ask Tai to help,” Qrow decided. “And maybe we can think about bringing Oobleck and Pete into the loop. Yang, I’m assuming you don’t need to be talked into helping find your new best friend.”

“Who, Peridot?”

“Cute.”

“Yeah, count me in.”

“I can help, too,” Ruby insisted. “And I’m sure Weiss—”

“Is starting school in a few weeks,” Ozpin reminded her.

“Well, that still leaves me!”

“Tell you what, you can come with us for some of our foot searches,” Qrow suggested. “Be an extra set of eyes.”

“You know your dad would never let you search alone,” Yang pointed out when Ruby would have objected. “We _kinda_ gotta check in with him on that.”

Ruby sighed, but they were right—Tai had long since given the go-ahead for supervised Hunting work, but he wouldn’t want her working solo. Neither would the Gems, of course, so this was a pretty clear case of passing the buck…but that didn’t mean they didn’t have a point. “Alright.”

“So we done here, then?” Yang asked, looking around. “I’m officially over this whole freaking building. And this day.”

“Considering we know Peridot couldn’t leave the room, I don’t see a whole lot of point in sticking around today,” Qrow voted. “We can come back anytime to look for more info on the Record, if we wanna confirm what we already know. I _know,_ technically we _don’t_ know if we don’t have evidence,” he added, spotting the pained look on Ozpin’s face. “Don’t be so damn pedantic. It’s not like we’re trying to build a court case against the guy; he’s dead.”

“True enough,” Ozpin allowed. “And I’m certainly not about to argue that he wasn’t responsible. It’s the most probable explanation by far.” He took one last long look at Merlot’s digital ghost, his expression indecipherable, before he reached out and banished the display. “No, I don’t see any reason we should linger here, either.”

“Good,” Ruby said, shivering.

* * *

By the time she was back in her bedroom, she found she couldn’t _stop_ shivering. It was early afternoon—once again, Ruby’s world had been tipped on its ear in a matter of hours. She brushed out her hair and changed her clothes with slow, absent motions, slipping on her rose-print sundress since she was out of clean shorts again. She pulled a heavy knitted jumper over her head, not caring if it matched. Then she flopped back on her bed with her arms spread wide, staring at the exposed rafters of the slanted ceiling without really seeing anything.

Qrow swore there wasn’t going to be a war. Ozpin was clearly worried— _terrified—_ that there was, and the thought he might be right was even more worrying now Ruby was coming to grips with the fact that they’d only sort of won the first time around. _Was_ he right, and Qrow holding onto wishful thinking? Or was Qrow right, and Ozpin just paranoid? Was there even such a thing as _‘just_ paranoid’ anymore? At least the two of them seemed to be on the same page again, even if they were currently standing at opposite ends of the optimism/pessimism spectrum. And once again, Ruby was left in the middle, unsure of which way she should turn.

She knew it was supposed to be a thing, where teenagers felt like every problem felt like the end of the world even if it wasn’t. But what if this _was_ the end of the world? Her whole world—and everyone _in_ it—!

Her scroll rang, surprising a sharp squeaking sound out of her. She rolled over onto the floor, grabbing her discarded denim shorts and pulling out her scroll. She put her back against her bed and answered it.

“Hey, Jaune,” she said, hoping her voice sounded normal.

_“Ruby! Guess what! I just got the letter—they sent it a week ago but it got lost in the mail or something—Ruby, I got in! I got into Signal!”_

Ruby gasped. “Jaune, that’s great!”

Zwei emerged from under her bed, his back rubbing against the underside of the frame, and settled down in a fuzzy loaf beside her. She scritched his neck.

 _“I can’t believe it. I got my essay in_ so _late—I mean, obviously before the deadline but_ right _up against it and I was sure it wasn’t good enough—”_

 _“I_ told _you it was good!”_ Pyrrha’s voice was distant and crackly, but Ruby could clearly hear the fond exasperation in it.

Optimism, she decided. Qrow was right. Qrow _had_ to be right. And she’d do everything she could to make sure he was.

* * *

“So Ruby’s on her scroll in her room, Yang’s in the garage trying to deafen herself and doing who-knows-what to that bike of hers, and here’s me about to take off and start the search when I realise you _aren’t_ in your workroom with a pot of chocolate and a pile of books. Or in the living room with a pot of chocolate and a smaller pile of books that _won’t_ melt your brain.”

Ozpin of course recognised Qrow’s voice, but he looked over his shoulder anyway. The Pearl was only just emerging from among the trees; he hadn’t been standing and watching, then.

 _Not that I’m doing anything worth watching,_ Ozpin reflected. _Sulking, I suppose. There isn’t much to glean from that._

“I’d go for option two, personally,” Qrow offered. “It’s been a long damn day.”

“Ruby isn’t the only one who comes out here to think, you know,” Ozpin said, turning back to look out on the valley below. Soon enough the trees would be in autumn colours, red maple and golden birch and a handful of dull, brown oaks.

“Or to talk?” He could hear Qrow slowly strolling up behind him, footsteps almost soft enough to miss, if Ozpin weren’t so familiar with his tread.

“I try to avoid conversing with the dead, as a rule.”

“Oh? Thought that’d be right up your alley. A little philosophical discourse with someone who can’t interrupt you mid-argument.”

Ozpin laughed softly. “On the contrary. I’m afraid if I start talking to the dead, one of these days, they’ll talk back.”

“What do you expect them to say?” They were side-by-side now, both pretending to take in the view rather than looking at each other.

“What do _you_ think Lady Rose would have said, if she could have seen me today?”

“That you’ve got more to lose than anyone if Homeworld comes calling, and it’s natural to freak out about it.”

Ozpin absently reached up and touched his scarf where it lay against his throat.

“No one can be completely calm all the time, Oz. Some of us lose our tempers…”

“And some of us lose our wits,” Ozpin quipped, smiling mirthlessly. “Perfect serenity is the sole province of the dead, alas. At least it’s something to look forward to.”

Qrow turned to look at him, at that, and Ozpin glanced over to meet his gaze. “Too far?”

“No,” Qrow decided, actually taking a moment to consider the question. “It’s pretty in line with your usual morbid streak. Guess I’m just a little more sensitive about it today.”

“Fair enough.”

“So, you think you’re gonna be able to read me in anytime soon?”

Now Ozpin did turn to look fully at Qrow.

“Come on, Oz.” Qrow smirked. “Give me a little credit. You’ve been stacking up contingency plans ever since we found that drone. Hell, you’ve been drafting outlines for ’em since the end of the war. Even with what’s at stake, this shouldn’t’ve spooked you so bad.”

“It wouldn’t have, once,” Ozpin admitted after a long moment. He looked away again, readjusting his grip on the handle of his cane. “Do you remember how long it took Summer to convince me to join the Rebellion?”

“You thought we were all screwed.”

“I did.”

“We were. You helped turn the tide.”

“We all did.”

“Exactly.” Qrow nudged him lightly. “All of us, working together. It was enough to fight a war. Why wouldn’t it be enough to stop one?”

“‘All of us’ describes a much smaller number than it once did.” _And we barely won then, if it can really be said we won at all._

Qrow didn’t have a counter to that. Ozpin knew he wouldn’t, so perhaps it had been cruel of him to say it aloud. It wasn’t as if Qrow didn’t know the numbers for himself.

“And it’s fair to say the quality of our leadership has gone downhill since then.” A sardonic smile. “Lady Rose kept us safe for over five thousand years. I couldn’t manage it for fifteen.”

“Oz…”

Ozpin shook his head minutely. “Ah, enough. It isn’t your job to indulge my self-pity _or_ to talk me out of it.” He summoned up a more benign smile, resting a hand on Qrow’s shoulder and turning back to the house. “Come. We have work to do.”

Behind him, unnoticed as he walked away, Qrow bowed his head. “Back to normal, then,” he muttered. “Stubborn old bastard…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ruby: How are you not sure if you won or not? And how do you just forget to mention that?  
> Ozpin: Well…  
> \----  
> Oobleck: It’s over! This day shall live on in posterity for all time! I’ll write a book!  
> Qrow: So did we win?  
> Summer: I guess?  
> Torchwick: Wait hang on a sec lemme check *shakes magic 8-ball* “Try Again Later”.  
> Summer: …Hooray we won!  
> Qrow: Woo!  
> Ozpin: Sounds fake but ok  
> Torchwick: Cool I’m out, later nerds  
> Oobleck: on second thought no books. only repression.  
> \----  
> Qrow: so yeah that’s how  
> Yang: _Oh my god—_
> 
> So surprise it was actually also Coach Steven and there’s another Fusion now! And Peridot’s stand-in is at last revealed: the inimitable Penny Polendina! My precious metal child. I love her.
> 
> I spent a really long time trying to justify giving Pennydot red hair, but it just…it just didn’t work. Having Penny not only filling Peridot’s role but being an actual Peridot fit really, really well, since I’m trying to retain as much of SU’s worldbuilding re: Gem types and castes as I plausibly can, and peridots come in a really small range of colours and all of them are green. Speaking of green, turns out Ozpin is in fact the newly-reinstated president of the Not Okay club, which we already kinda knew. Qrow’s not doing so great with his insecurities either, and neither of them are masters of communication, so today’s award for Best Psychological Health In A Gem goes to Yang, the winner by default!
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are deeply appreciated, as is the simple fact that this is the eleventh chapter and you’re still reading! Thank you so much! See you next time!


	12. Farther From Our Goal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby has a question. Yang needs a distraction. Story time's as good a way as any to spend an afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *best Ruby impression* This is _fluff. FLUFF!_  
>  But it's also a part of the story I've been wanting to get around to for awhile now, especially as tensions continue to rise within and around Ruby's family and more emphasis is placed on what it means to be not only a Gem, but, say, a Homeworld Gem or a Remnan Gem. And, well, I never pass up a chance to round out Yang's character a little. She's so forceful she can come across as pretty one-dimensional otherwise.  
>   
> So anyway, I decided it was time to do On The Run, and that's what this is! I hope you enjoy!

The air had taken a turn for the cooler, but Ruby resolutely pulled on her jean shorts anyway. Long pants were for suckers. Besides, it wasn’t like it was cold—it just wasn’t sweltering anymore. Vale’s summers weren’t especially hot in the first place, at least in the north, so as August drew to a close fall’s approach was palpable. It was definitely hoodie weather, though, Ruby decided, or at least it would be until it got closer to noon.

Zwei matched her pace going down the stairs, the tips of his ears bobbing with each bounding step down. Momentum took over and he beat her to the bottom, trundling off towards the kitchen in eager expectation of the bacon which Ruby had smelled even in her bedroom.

There were three people downstairs, as there should have been, but after a moment of slightly-bleary squinting and blinking, Ruby realised they were the wrong three.

“Hey, Dad!” She hugged him, and he embraced her tightly in return.

“Morning, rosebud. Sleep well?”

“Yep!”

“Notice you don’t ask _us_ about our sleep hygiene,” Qrow drawled. “That’s hurtful, Tai.”

“Yeah! We sleep, too!” Yang was behind the kitchen counter, leaning next to the stove with a pair of little tongs in her hands. The sizzling cast-iron pan beside her had earned Zwei’s undivided attention. He sat before the range like a worshipper at a shrine.

“As a hobby,” Taiyang said dryly, lidding his eyes, unimpressed. “You don’t ask me how my gardens are.”

“How are your gardens, Tai?” Qrow asked mockingly.

Tai stared him down flatly for a moment, then smiled brightly. “Well, most of the late-season growth is coming in nicely, but the rabbits have been going after my lily bulbs again…”

“We’ve got cayenne if you need it!” Yang called from the kitchen.

“I think they might be starting to build a capsaicin tolerance,” Tai said. “I’m pretty sure I’m just seasoning them at this point. But I’m not having as much trouble with borers anymore, at least! I’ll probably still soak my irises for good measure, but…”

Qrow turned a pleading look on Ruby, who shook her head and walked right past, patting him genially on the arm. “Hang in there, tiger,” she urged softly, grinning.

“Surrounded by people who love to mess with him, and he never learns not to take the bait,” Yang sighed as Ruby took a seat at the counter. She turned the bacon in the pan. “Maybe next century.”

“Where’s Ozpin? I know he’s not upstairs.”

“Haven.” The humour in Yang’s face faded. “Figures we mentioned it enough to Scapolite that she might take the risk of going there on her own, if she’s hurt bad enough.”

“She won’t, will she.”

“Nah, not a chance. But Lionheart knows to keep an eye out now. Probably doesn’t know why, but I doubt he got his job by _not_ listening to Oz.”

“He’s retired. Why would he have any say on who’s in charge of Haven?”

Yang just looked at her, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, okay. So Dad’s here to…?”

“Eat breakfast, see my wonderful daughter, and use my non-threatening humanity to ask around the city after Scapolite while Qrow keeps looking for Peridot.” Tai slid onto the stool next to Ruby, grabbing the half-drunk mug of tea which sat there.

“How do you know she’s even on the continent anymore? Oh, thanks Yang,” she added as a plate of bacon and toast appeared in front of her.

Yang muttered something that sounded like “no problem!” around the toast slice jammed into her mouth. The thumbs-up did the heavy lifting on letting Ruby translate.

“She hasn’t tripped the motion sensor we put around the Emerald Forest warp, so we’re assuming she can’t have used it,” Qrow said, leaning back against the counter. “’Course, with the whole ninja thing, that’s a hell of an assumption. Best we could do, though. The only other warps this side of the Divide are at Beacon on the other side of a barrier she can’t bust through anymore, Merlot’s island on the other side of Forever Fall and a lot of choppy water, and here. Assuming she’s not crazy enough to try and sneak into our back yard, odds are she’s still right under our noses.”

“She probably wouldn’t risk the pass on foot if she’s trying to lie low,” Tai agreed. “And since she’s injured, she’s probably sticking to populated areas for safety’s sake, even if it puts her at greater risk of exposure.”

“So what’s our job for the day?” Ruby asked, glancing at Yang. If everyone else had their tasks, she must be going with the Ametrine.

“Resting,” Qrow said, giving Yang a hard look.

“What?” Ruby protested, dropping her bacon back to her plate. “Why?”

“’Cause someone’s been sneaking out pulling double shifts at night. You know. Night. When there’s no sun,” Qrow emphasised. “So Yang gets to stay here and make like a solar panel.”

Yang rolled her eyes mightily, but said nothing. The inevitable argument must have played out while Ruby was still asleep.

“But I can still—”

“You need rest too,” Tai said firmly. “I know you’re made of tougher stuff than your poor ol’ dad, but I don’t want you pushing yourself. Why don’t you spend some time hanging out with Weiss? You know she’s not going to have as much free time once school starts.” He grinned at her. “Besides, I’d like to actually meet this small, pale stranger you had a fateful encounter with at some point.”

Ruby flushed. “You—you will!”

“Maybe even before the wedding invites go out,” Yang quipped.

 _“Yang—stop—talking!”_ Ruby hissed, leaning forward and cutting her hand across her throat.

Qrow, meanwhile, waved a hand in front of Tai’s unseeing eyes, then slid the man’s plate beneath his frozen hand, poised with a piece of bacon ready to eat. “Damn, Yang, I think you broke him.”

“Not my fault he didn’t think through the implications,” Yang scoffed.

* * *

Mid-morning found Ruby nudging Yang’s door open, a book held to her chest. The Ametrine wasn’t there, but one of her windows was open. Ruby pushed the sash up a little further and crawled through it onto the wide, sturdy plank bolted to the underside of the sill. It formed a shallow ramp that ended just past the gutter of the garage roof, the end of the board propped up by a brick tightly wedged in place. On the shallow slope of the roof, Yang was stretched out on her back on a smooth, patterned rug whose colours had mostly faded, holding a handheld game system above her face and tapping the buttons frantically.

“Hey,” Ruby greeted her.

“’Sup.” Yang didn’t look away from her game.

Yang hadn’t been able to get away with making too many alterations to the garage roof—she wouldn’t have gotten away with any at all if this half of the roof weren’t hidden from the front of the house. But in addition to tacking down the rug and installing the makeshift ramp, she’d put in a set of brackets just the right size to hold an old-fashioned cooler, which Yang reached out to blindly with one hand, popping it open and grabbing a can of soda she tossed to Ruby.

Ruby fumbled a little, but managed to catch it without dropping her book. She gazed at the can ruefully. “Thanks.” _I can’t open it for awhile now, but…_

“Yup.” Yang had continued to play one-handed, somehow, but her other hand and her attention now returned to her game.

Ruby set her book and soda down next to Yang and reached for the newest and biggest addition, an awning that laid flat against the roof most of the time but could be cranked upright to shade a little over half the rug. Whether Summer would have approved of this alteration was irrelevant; it had been added when she was long gone, after Ruby’s first bad sunburn had sent Yang into a panic spiral over statistics on skin cancer.

It had not, of course, occurred to any of the Gems that the easy answer was to keep Ruby from climbing around on rooftops, or that most eight-year-olds were not allowed to do that in the first place.

Ruby settled down cross-legged in the shade and cracked open her book, finding her page quickly. The sounds of Yang’s game soon faded into the background, but Ruby had trouble focusing on the pages in front of her. She’d left off right before a good part, too, so she knew she wasn’t bored with it, but she kept having to jump back a few sentences and re-read, and even then the words didn’t want to soak in.

“No Weiss?” Yang asked abruptly.

Ruby looked up, slightly relieved. “She’s got piano today.”

“Can’t hang out anyway?”

“There’s not really time after her lesson and before dinner and she always practices before she goes. Which is kinda weird because she’s gonna have to spend an hour practicing anyway, and why does she go out for lessons? She’s got a piano at her house, and she’s rich, but she walks to this music store downtown every week.”

“Artists are weird. Maybe her teacher won’t come to her.”

“I dunno.”

“Why’s she walk? Walking’s lame.”

“Makes it harder for people to force a schedule on her if there isn’t a car waiting.”

“Mm. Teenage rebellion in the 1%. Beats the other version, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

Yang didn’t say anything else, so after a bit, Ruby went back to struggling through her book.

“How’s the game going?” she blurted out when she couldn’t take it anymore.

“Maxed the score out half an hour ago.”

“And you’re…still playing?”

“Nothing better to do.”

“You could…play a different game?”

“Nah.”

“Okay.”

Ruby didn’t even try to go back to her book this time, drumming her fingers against the page and pursing her lips, fighting the urge to say something but having no idea what it was she was trying not to say.

“How _are_ Gems created anyway?” she blurted out, just as Yang jabbed Start with her thumb and announced “I gotta get out of the house.”

They blinked at each other. Yang set her game down and rolled over onto her stomach, propped up on her elbows.

“’Kay, I’ll bite,” she said. “Why ‘how is Gem form’ all of a sudden?”

 _How is Gem…_ Ruby mouthed, confused, then shook her head. “U-um, Scapolite and Peridot, they both made a pretty big deal about how Gems are made to do specific things, which, I mean, I kinda knew? But the way they said it made it sound almost… _religious_ or something. And they said the Diamonds are their—your—our?—creators, but Diamonds are Gems too, right? And I just…” She shrugged, biting her lip. “I don’t know. When I think of Gems, I think of people like you. But you didn’t just appear out of midair. …Did you?”

“No.” Yang looked away and frowned. “I’m not sure the questions you want answered are the ones you’re gonna get answered if that’s the question you’re asking. Gah. What I’m trying to say is, how we’re made doesn’t have much to do with how we end up. I mean, even physically.” She shifted her weight left and held out her right arm, Gemstone glinting. “Look at this. I’m supposed to be an Amethyst, for crying out loud. Who ever heard of a yellow Amethyst?”

“But who decided you were gonna be an Amethyst? How did they try to make that happen? How did that _not_ happen?” Ruby scooted closer. “Peridot said something about Gems _emerging_ from something called the Prime Kindergarten. Is that where it all happens? Where Gems are born? Formed?” she corrected herself hastily.

“Prime Kindergarten?” Yang wrinkled her nose. “That makes it sound like there’s a secondary one. As far as I know, there’s just the one.”

“Yang,” Ruby pressed, bouncing anxiously in place.

“Alright,” she relented. “Chill. I was getting around to it. Actually…”

A smirk worked its way over the Gem’s face.

“Yang?” Ruby said again, a bit more warily this time.

“Why don’t _we_ get around to it? Warp over with my bike, do a little drive-through tour of the ol’ Gem factory, huh?” She flipped her hair, preening. “I can show you the very spot the greatest Quartz on Remnant emerged.”

“Mom?” Ruby asked, only half-joking.

Yang opened her mouth to retort, then paused, narrowing her eyes. “You’re putting me in a _very_ awkward position, shorty.”

“Hey!”

“What? You’re short. Get over it.”

“Oh, I’m gonna! I’m gonna grow up taller than you and you’ll be stuck the same size forever, so there!” Ruby stuck out her tongue.

“There’s not enough milk in the world to give you _that_ much of a boost, widdle Wosie.”

“Oh, you wait and see. You just _wait and see.”_

* * *

Ruby couldn’t say she wasn’t expecting what she saw when the warp glow faded, but only because she wasn’t sure what she had expected. Cliffs of pale stone reared tall all around her, forming a deep canyon which was darkly shadowed even as the sun crept higher. The cliffs were pockmarked with small holes, like someone had gone a little trigger-happy with a core-sampling drill.

She stepped off the warp, Yang moving slower behind her as she manoeuvred her motorcycle down the platform’s steps, and approached the nearest cliff. She held out her hand next to one of the holes, measuring it. It was perfectly round, about two inches across. Ruby furrowed her brow, then looked down at her Gemstone in realisation.

“Yup.” Yang had come up beside her, wheeling Bumblebee along as easy as Ruby pushing her pedal bike. “Welcome to the Quartz section. Us grunts, not the officer-types, they’re back thataway, all the Agates and Jaspers and other Chalcedonies. It’s silica all down the wall, though.” She rapped her knuckles against it.

“So your—our Gemstones, they just come out of the rock?”

“Yup. There’s a ton of excess energy that burns off the first time we try to form bodies, and it kinda just—” Yang made a loud, breathy _pow!_ noise, flicking her fingers to mime a Gemstone going flying. “Boom. Newborn Gem. Aw, come on, don’t gimme that look.”

“What look?” Ruby asked, half-seriously. “I’m not giving you a look.” More accurately, she didn’t know what the look was, as she couldn’t decide whether to be impressed at the fact that emerging Gems had to laser their way out of solid rock or start giggling at the fact that they apparently launched themselves free like some kind of self-firing potato gun.

“It’s metal as hell!” Yang insisted, pulling an injured face that suggested Ruby’s had reacted more to the comedic side of the story. “I’d like to see _you_ bust your way out of the freaking _planet_ on sheer willpower.”

“No thanks, I’m good.” Ruby bent down, peering inside one of the holes. “So what kinda Quartzes would have been coming outta here?”

“Oh, y’know, Amethysts obviously—though I’m like, _way_ further down towards the end—here, put this on.” Yang handed over the helmet, causing Ruby to make a face, but she followed Yang in straddling the motorcycle and put it over her head regardless. “Smokies…I think there were some microcrystallines in the mix once Homeworld upped production…”

She revved the bike once and then they were off, speeding in a way that would have alarmed Ruby if she didn’t go this fast on her own on a regular basis. Heck, the helmet would only have to do its job if she got sloppy; she could just turn into petals if Yang lost control. The Ametrine was probably in more danger than Ruby was.

“Y’know, like Agates that didn’t get enough time to develop bands, or Cherts and stuff,” Yang yelled over the noise of the engine and the wind whipping past. “Real bottom-of-the-totem-pole stuff, I guess a lot of ’em ended up joining your mom even though some of them were literally _made_ to fight her. Talk about backfiring!”

“And Rose Quartzes!”

“And Rose Quartzes! Not sure where you guys came out. I don’t really visit the Kindergarten a lot!”

“Why’s it called a Kindergarten?”

“Oh, I know this! It’s an overly literal translation. It’s where new Gems are grown, so, it’s literally a _garden of kids._ Just, the kids aren’t really kids. And it’s a rock garden. You know, thinking about it, I bet an organic came up with the name. I don’t think Gems even have a word for _children,_ just the _newly-emerged.”_

“Close enough?”

“Eh.” Yang shrugged, pulling a sharp turn into a curve barely worthy of the name, but Ruby imagined driving in a straight line got boring after awhile. “Ooh, we’re in Amethyst country now. You want me to pull over when we get to my—to—the spot I came out?”

“You can say _hole._ I wouldn’t’ve made fun.”

“And somewhere back in Vale, Qrow is disappointed in you for that.”

“But my dad is proud. Hey, where are _we?”_

“Y’know that northwest continent shaped like a dragon we all pretend doesn’t exist? This is why we pretend it doesn’t exist. Place _really_ took the brunt of the colonisation effort. The Kindergarten, lots of quarries, some old Gem ruins the Rebellion couldn’t find a use for… Oh! Here’s me.”

Bumblebee slowed to a stop, pulled over a few feet away from a cliff. Yang waited for Ruby to get off the bike before she did the same, taking the helmet back and hooking it over the higher handlebar. “Home sweet home.”

“Which one?”

“Mmm…” Yang frowned, squinting at the cliff face. “That one,” she declared, pointing at a spot a few feet over Ruby’s head and off to the left. “Behold!”

It was just another unremarkable hole in the rock, identical to all the rest; Ruby wasn’t even sure how Yang knew she was right. But the Gem’s proud enthusiasm was infectious, and Ruby grinned. “The birthplace of a legend!”

“You know it!” She put a hand on her hip. “Man, the Diamonds would be kicking themselves so hard right now if they knew what they’d missed out on.”

But Yang’s grin started to fade as she looked longer at the cliff face.

“Well, I say that, but really they’re probably happy not to have to deal with me. Since I’m _off-colour_ and all. You know Amethysts don’t even have cool element powers? That’s all my Citrine side, but it wouldn’t make a difference to them how great the mix is. I’m not what they wanted.”

“Yang…”

“No, don’t get me wrong,” Yang said hastily, holding out her hands defensively. “I don’t care what Homeworld thinks about Gems like me—no, that’s not—I don’t care what they think about _me._ Gems _like_ me…look, all the other Gems in this section? They emerged before the war was over. Maybe the Rebellion fought some of them. Maybe some of them joined up. Or…y’know, maybe they all came out a little slow-cooked on one side, like I did. What’d Scapolite say? That I was ‘lucky I wasn’t shattered on emergence’?”

“Oh.” Ruby breathed in sharply, looking over the holes in the cliff with new eyes. “You think maybe they were…broken?”

“No telling.” Yang shrugged. “All I know is I’ve never seen another Ametrine, and neither of the Amethysts I’ve met came from this patch. Even after I found out I was some kind of _mistake_ , I never put two and two together until Scapolite spelled it out. I think…maybe I just didn’t want to make that connection.”

“I’m sorry,” Ruby said, which felt _entirely_ inadequate, but what else was there to say?

“Hey, look on the bright side,” Yang said with a bleak sort of humour. “I’m one-of-a-kind in more ways than one.” Her gaze was distant. “You know, I was almost _none_ -of-a-kind. Almost got myself pulverised into gravel right here in the Kindergarten. Wouldn’t _that_ have sucked?”

“How?” Ruby asked, frowning. “Monsters?”

“Nope. The illustrious leadership of the Rose Rebellion.” At Ruby’s shock, Yang cracked another grin, far more at home on her face than the wan smile of earlier. “Oh yeah. They weren’t expecting me, and I was expecting worse of them. See, I don’t know how it works exactly, but somehow we all emerge already knowing a few things, like what we’re supposed to be and do and which Diamond we’re supposed to serve, and my batch got seeded _just_ late enough that even if there hadn’t been a big ol’ stranger-danger alert going off, I had this little voice in my head telling me the Rebels were the bad guys…”

* * *

Amethyst—well, she was supposed to be an Amethyst—Quartz, she decided. She was definitely a Quartz. The important matter of her nomenclature settled, Quartz settled herself behind an outcropping of rock, one of the few that hadn’t been hewn smooth to the ground. An obvious hiding place, even with the camouflage of her grey and dusky-violet uniform, but it was also the only one available on short notice, and they were coming closer. She could hear their voices echoing off the cliffs of the Kindergarten; they weren’t even trying to be stealthy. Enemies of the Diamonds, of Quartz’s Diamond, and they walked right in bold as anything like it was their own turf!

Maybe it was, whispered a doubting voice in her mind. Quartz was supposed to have been surrounded by the other Gems of her batch when she emerged, but she’d been alone. She’d been all alone for weeks, with no squad and no target and no orders. And she’d still be alone if these Gems cornered her, one against three, and she didn’t like the sound of those odds. She needed a plan.

“Alright,” said the smallest Gem, all shades of red and dark pink, her hair curling softly around the line of her jaw. The Gemstone revealed by her armoured gown was deep red and round—a Carnelian, maybe? Quartz couldn’t see it well enough to be sure. “This is the oldest part of the Kindergarten. The control module must be somewhere close by.”

“Underground, usually,” the tallest Gem put forth. “The access will be concealed—Homeworld wouldn’t have risked any native sentients stumbling into the nerve centre of the most important facility on the colony.” He was an odd one, green all over except for his silver-grey hair and the very dark red of the cloak cowled around his neck and falling back over his shoulders. She couldn’t see his Gemstone at all, or that of the last Gem, a grey-and-black specimen whose piercing red eyes were easily visible even at a distance. Like his compatriots, he wore a red cloak over his armour.

 _Rebels,_ that was what the cloaks meant. _Important_ Rebels, to be captured if possible and destroyed if not. Still no squad, still no orders, but Quartz had targets now, and it was like having a weight lifted from her that she hadn’t even noticed was there before.

“Strange being back here,” the grey Gem said, looking around with a searching gaze. Could he somehow feel Quartz watching them?

The green Gem glanced at him. “I hadn’t realised you’d been here before.”

“Came here on a few…errands.”

“Ah. A pity none of them involved the control module.”

“If they had, we wouldn’t need to look for it,” the red Gem pointed out. “I mean—we wouldn’t need to need to—we wouldn’t—there wouldn’t be a mission to find the module because we wouldn’t need the module. Yeah.” She rubbed at her forehead, either utterly oblivious or deliberately ignoring the green and grey Gems’ matching raised eyebrows. “Look, just—Ozpin, head that way. You know what you’re looking for.”

‘Ozpin’? That wasn’t any kind of Gem. But the green Gem reacted as if it were his designation, smiling and giving her the very shallowest of bows. “As my lady commands…”

“Oh, do _not._ Just _do not._ Go away.” He did so, chuckling, and vanished down one of the narrower, twisty furrows that were common in the oldest parts of the Kindergarten, from when the land was overgrown and space was at more of a premium. “Qrow, you work over there, and _I’m_ going to see if this little cut-off leads anywhere.”

“You got it. Be safe,” the grey Gem—Qrow—instructed.

“Aren’t I always?” The Lady (which in context must have been a respectful form of address, but was certainly a foreign word and one for which Quartz couldn’t place the exact translation) turned and slipped through a break in the rock. Qrow watched her go for a long moment, then finally faced the direction she’d indicated to him and began strolling towards Quartz’s hiding place.

* * *

“Wait. What do you mean _lady_ sounded weird to you?”

“It’s nonspecific and gendered. Didn’t really translate well into Adamant.” Yang spread her hands helplessly. “Gems call important Gems things like _Clarity_ and _Radiance_ and _Perfection_ , not _lady._ I mean, I got the gist, I knew it meant she was a big deal, but still. Weird.”

“Adamant…?”

“Oh, that’s the name of the Gem language.”

“But—but!” Ruby pointed at her accusingly. “You don’t _speak_ the Gem language!”

“Nope, sure don’t.”

“Then _how_ the _heck_ did you know all that!?”

“’Cause I _used_ to speak Adamant, right after I emerged.” She tapped her temple. “That whole info-imprinting thing, remember? Only it turns out none of that gets imprinted all that deep. You’re still supposed to learn things the normal way, and because you already kind of know it, you learn faster.”

“So why don’t you know Adamant now?”

“Uh…it _might_ be the case that…late-emergers like me are how we found out that even the general-knowledge imprints aren’t built to last.” She looked slightly embarrassed. “See, they figured that since I came out of the ground knowing Adamant—like they all thought _they_ did—it was more important to teach me organic languages than to help me practice something I was already fluent in. I didn’t even realise I was losing my Adamant until it was already basically gone.”

Ruby almost asked why she hadn’t just tried to relearn it, saw the uncomfortable expression on Yang’s face, and backed down instead.

“Anyway, Qrow was coming right for me even if he didn’t know it, and I was pretty sure that was a bad thing. So…”

* * *

Quartz picked up a rock. A nice, hefty one, though it felt a little weird to think about using another stone as a weapon. Still, she guessed that made them kin in an odd sort of way. It wouldn’t mind helping her out.

One by one, that was the way she’d do this. She’d pick them off as opportunities presented themselves, quiet, tactical, and then she’d have three Rebel officers as her prisoners! Her Diamond would be so proud! Of course, Quartz didn’t actually know where she’d _find_ her Diamond, but surely she’d locate Her eventually. It just might take a while. How big could the planet really be?

He was getting closer. Quartz gripped her rock tighter, shifting, tensing. Closer…closer…

He walked past her hiding place, utterly oblivious to her presence. With a surge of triumph, Quartz leapt from the lee of the outcropping and hurled herself at his back, bringing the rock down.

* * *

“I guess you could say it was a lucky shot.”

* * *

Oh, she didn’t know this feeling. She didn’t _like_ this feeling.

Qrow had tried to turn, hearing or maybe just _sensing_ movement behind him, but all he’d ended up doing was leaning _into_ her attack, and the rock had made impact not with the dull _thump_ Quartz had expected, but with a clear, pure ringing sound.

His eyes had gone very wide, shocked, _afraid,_ and his form had shuddered and it had been _horrible._ A jagged line cracking open over his body—light spilling out—he’d tried to stumble back, opened his mouth to shout or to scream and then—

And _then—_

Quartz stared down at his Gemstone where it lay in the dirt. A deep fissure cut in from one of the cabochon’s rounded edges, or what _had_ been an edge before it had chipped off, shedding a trail of coarse grey powder. It was dark, and not only in colour. It looked…lifeless.

The rock slipped from her numb fingers, landing on the ground in a puff of dusty soil.

He’d been a Pearl. A _Pearl._ She’d attacked the ultimate non-combatant. She’d—she’d _shattered_ him.

Slowly, she bent down, picking up the Gemstone, turning it over in her hands.

“Who are you?”

She’d allowed herself to become unforgivably distracted—either that, or Ozpin had the quietest step known to Gemkind. His voice was the first and only warning she had of his approach, and when she turned around to face him she found him much closer than she’d expected, just a few yards away. The light caught on his dark glasses as he tilted his head, narrowing his eyes— _brown_ eyes, how did he have _so many_ different colours on him, what was he, a Moss Agate? That didn’t feel right, but nothing about him pinged instant recognition. Maybe if she could spot his Gemstone…

“It’s generally considered polite to answer questions posed to you,” he informed her mildly, “so long as they aren’t too invasive.”

“You’re the ones who came into my place,” Quartz said lowly. “I’m feeling pretty invaded right now.”

 _“Your_ place?” Ozpin seemed to relax at that, smiling a little. “Goodness, you’re newly-emerged, aren’t you? I see Lady Rose’s continued interest is well-founded after all.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Quartz demanded. “Scoping out the opposition? What’re you planning to do, huh? Get to the others before they can emerge? Take them out?”

“…Even if we were willing to condone such methods, the fact is that we are here precisely because Gems like you are still emerging, even though the Kindergarten should by rights be empty.” Ozpin’s expression turned more serious. “You seem quite agitated, young one. Are you alright?”

The Kindergarten…empty? No. That was impossible. Sure, she—she knew she was the last of her batch to emerge, but someone was always the last. That was just how it worked. And, yes, it was true that there were an awful lot of holes and not very many smooth places that might or might not be sheltering forming Gems, but…but…!

“You’re lying,” she said, tightening her grip on Qrow’s Gemstone. She imagined she felt it pulse in response, like it knew what she had done and what she meant to do. What she had to do.

“What are you holding there, young one?” Ozpin asked her gently.

Might as well make the only play she had. It hadn’t been on purpose, but it had happened. Maybe she could use it to bluff her way out of this.

“Your Pearl.” She held it up carefully, concealing as much of the undamaged part as possible—no reason for him to believe she hadn’t shattered Qrow with deliberate, deadly precision, rather than accidentally bashing just a little too hard at a weak point. “What’s left of him, anyway.”

Ozpin’s eyes widened like Qrow’s had before the end. Then all at once his face went blank, utterly neutral, a cold, flat stare that revealed nothing. “And just what _is_ left of him?”

There was something… _unsettling_ about his calm, even tone, but he hadn’t come at her, so Quartz figured she was doing well so far. “An empty rock. Cracked right through.” She lifted her chin, jerking her head to indicate somewhere behind him. “If I were you, I’d grab _my lady_ and run before I got the same.”

“Is that so?” His voice had gone quite soft, and she could just detect a faint tremor in it. She smirked.

“I consider myself a sensible Gem,” Quartz said, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “And that’s the sensible thing to do.”

Peculiarly, Ozpin took a deep breath as if he were about to speak, only to release it again, very slowly. _Well,_ someone’s _gone native._ “I will give you one chance… _this_ chance…to surrender peacefully. We do not shatter Gems as punishment here. Whatever your sentence, you will survive Lady Rose’s judgement.”

“Do you hear yourself? I’m a _soldier._ I can take you, rebel!”

A brief, tight, brittle smile. “Under other circumstances, I would find your posturing amusing.”

Oho, so he knew how to play the bluffing game, too. Time to up the ante.

“It’s just too bad your Pearl wouldn’t listen to reason,” Quartz sighed, shaking her head. “Maybe you’ll be smarter than he was. And hey, as long as you’re alive, who knows? Maybe you can order a replacement.”

Ozpin did not react. He _actively_ did not react. Not a blink. Not a twitch. Quartz found herself taking a step back, and wasn’t quite sure why.

Her boot barely hit the ground again before Ozpin moved. His hand darted to his waist, pulling free a strange metal cylinder with a lever on it; he pushed the lever, extending the device into—a cane?

Quartz drew breath to mock him for trying to threaten her with a stick, except suddenly said stick struck her end-on in the chest, knocking the air from her and knocking her off her feet, flinging her backwards. Ozpin’s reach wasn’t that long, how had he—had he actually closed the distance between them that quickly?

Yes. Yes he had, she realised as he closed with her again, wielding the cane like a sword. She took a heavy hit to her ribs and managed to catch another on her forearm. Quartz kept her feet under her this time, better braced, but the blows _hurt,_ and the one she’d blocked jarred her arm out of position, a strange numbness traveling down to her hand. He’d hit her hard enough to disrupt her projection, like an organic pinching a nerve, and she could only watch as her fingers opened without her permission, Qrow’s Gemstone tumbling to the ground.

Ozpin glanced at it, the sight of the cracked stone cracking his mask a little too, shades of anguish and fury playing over his features. Quartz didn’t waste her time pitying him, pulling back her other arm and launching a punch towards his throat—the only target she could easily reach that wasn’t clearly armoured.

She still wasn’t fast enough—he saw her, his free hand whipping up palm-out and closing around her fist, stopping it dead. His cane batted her more sluggish left arm away, leaving her wide open for the solid kick that struck her centre-mass. Quartz thought at first that his grip on her would keep her standing, but he released her just as the sole of his boot made contact, and once again, she went flying, wrenching a cry of shock and pain from her.

The impact stunned her, blanking her mind for a split-second and leaving her limbs limp. _This_ time, she could hear Ozpin’s approach. And he was _walking_ towards her, like he had all the time in the world. Like she was already finished.

 _No,_ she thought. _Not yet. Not on the same rock I came from._

Quartz started to move, to lever herself upright, only for her back to hit the ground again as Ozpin’s boot came down on her chest.

“Get _off!”_ she snarled. She raised her arms to make him, and his fingers closed around her right wrist, punishingly tight. She went to claw at his arm with her other hand instead, but it was still weak, and before she could find purchase—

Quartz froze, realising his cane was gone. His cane was gone, but its handle wasn’t, and Ozpin’s fingers were on the lever. The end where the shaft would emerge was aimed squarely at her Gemstone.

“Enough,” Ozpin ordered, the word almost a growl.

She remembered how quickly the cane could extend. Could see in her mind’s eye the speed and force with which it would strike her. She’d be shattered instantly. Looked like she _was_ finished, after all. But damned if she was going to give her killer the satisfaction of her fear. Quartz stared him down, refusing to look at his weapon, resisting the urge to shut her eyes and pretend this wasn’t real. She set her jaw tightly against any pleas or sounds that might try to escape, and she waited for the end.

Despite her resolve, Quartz couldn’t suppress a flinch at the sound of the cane extending, and she cursed herself vainly as her eyes snapped shut. Then, processing the fact that she was still alive, she opened first one eye, then the other, as the first one could see nothing but the blunted tip of the cane poised less than an inch away. One sharp jab, and she’d discorporate.

“Enough,” Ozpin said again, his voice softer now. Weary. His eyes were still cold and hard, his face still terrible and remote. “You may be ignorant of our laws, but I am bound by them. You aren’t going to die today. But I will _never_ see you freed from stasis. An eternity of missed moments—I wonder if a quick death wouldn’t be kinder.”

“You wouldn’t know kindness if it bit you,” Quartz hissed.

“I know less of kindness now than I did an hour ago, when my friend was still alive.” His hand tightened on her wrist. His voice had gone sharp again, detached and contemptuous. “A pity for all of us you did not stay your hand.”

He drew back his cane, tensed to drive it home—

_“Ozpin!”_

Bad guy or not, she had to hand it to him; the Gem pinning her didn’t lose his balance even though he froze mid-motion. Quartz dared to tilt her head enough to see Lady Rose a few paces behind Ozpin, to her right. One closed pinkish-red hand was clasped against her chest, the other curled protectively around the first.

“It’s alright, Oz. You can stand down.”

“Stand down,” Ozpin echoed, nearly inaudibly, then _“Stand down?_ You’d have me let her _go.”_

“Yes.”

“You don’t know what she’s done.”

Lady Rose shook her head. The motion sent light sparkling off the tear tracks on her cheeks. “I know what she hasn’t done.”

“She _shattered_ Qrow.” Ozpin’s voice was doing the shaking thing again, which Quartz now knew was in fact a Bad Thing. His weapon was still positioned to take Quartz out.

“Did she tell you that?”

“And I saw him—only briefly, but…” The cane wavered. He dropped Quartz’s arm, turned his head to look at the other Gem. Quartz weighed her odds of escaping and found them wanting. Maybe if the Lady convinced Ozpin to get off of her, she could risk making a break for it.

“I saw him too, not-so-briefly, on my way to help you.” Lady Rose held out her hands, revealing Qrow’s Gemstone. To Quartz’s shock, it was whole and smooth, the missing chip returned seamlessly to its proper place. It shone with an inner lustre to match the iridescence on its glossy surface. “You see? She was lying, or else she was as mistaken as you were. She’s young, isn’t she? She might not have realised he wasn’t beyond saving.” She bit her lip, examining the Gemstone again for herself with an anxious eye. “Well, not for a Rose Quartz, anyway. He’s fixed now, Oz, I promise. Qrow’s going to be fine.”

“Despite our new friend’s best efforts,” Ozpin murmured, turning his chill regard back to Quartz, who flinched as much from surprise as unease; she might as well have stopped existing once his attention had turned to the other rebel.

“Weren’t you always the one admonishing me for rushing to judgement?” Rose Quartz stepped closer and put a hand on Ozpin’s shoulder. “You’re better than this, teacher. _Neither anger nor fear may rule you._ If our roles were reversed, I know you would counsel mercy.”

It took Quartz’s jumbled imprints a moment to place the word, _teacher;_ it was an old one, not part of the list of terms and phrases she’d been expected to know. Its effect on Ozpin was startling. The hollow mask guarding his features seemed to melt away by increments, emotion and life bleeding back into him as Rose Quartz spoke. Slowly, the tip of the cane drifted away from Quartz’s face, finally coming to rest on the ground beside her instead. Now maybe she could—no, he’d feel it if she tried to move, and she’d be right back where she was a minute ago.

“Qrow is whole,” Rose Quartz reminded Ozpin, taking his hand in one of hers and placing Qrow’s Gemstone in his palm. “So what was her crime? Riling you is unwise, but hardly illegal.”

“She did assault and discorporate him.”

“She’s a newly-emerged, indoctrinated mess of impulses. She might even have thought it was self-defense.”

“Hey!” Quartz protested. She froze as the other Gems turned to look down at her.

A lot of the remaining tension in Ozpin drained away then, as he gazed down at her with hostility swiftly giving way to something almost…curious. He hummed softly, thoughtfully, then at last took his weight from Quartz, backing a few steps away as Rose Quartz approached her.

“Let’s get you up, then,” she said, bending down and stretching out a hand. Quartz stared at it, bewildered. “You’re an Ametrine, aren’t you? I’m Summer. He’s Ozpin. We’re not going to hurt you, I promise.”

Quartz’s—Ametrine’s?—eyes darted over Summer’s shoulder, towards Ozpin. He was no longer looking at them, instead directing his attention at the Gemstone in his hand. She saw his mouth move with words too soft for them to hear.

“Ozpin isn’t what you’d call a trusting soul,” Summer said, following her gaze. Ametrine still hadn’t taken her hand, so Summer lowered herself to the ground beside her, crouching on the balls of her feet. “He’s never completely opened up to anyone. I’m not sure he ever will. But he comes close with me and Qrow. I think if he lost us both, he might just shut down entirely.”

Ozpin seemed to sense their scrutiny, glancing over and meeting Ametrine’s eyes, his own narrowing slightly in clear distrust. His fingers closed securely around Qrow’s Gemstone.

“We all lost a lot of people in the war—the one your imprints keep prodding you to try and win for Homeworld. We pushed on because we had to, because otherwise we’d lose everything, and everyone who’d already given their lives would have died for nothing. But the war’s over now.”

That got Ametrine’s attention, blinking at Summer in confusion. “Over?”

Summer smiled sadly. “Has been for almost two thousand years. We’re at peace.” She got a distant look in her eyes, then, murmuring again, “We’re at peace. We can _stop.”_

Slowly, as much from her own trepidation as to forestall any kind of reaction from the others, Ametrine sat up, wincing at the peculiar strained feeling in her body. “The—the _things._ In my head. The imprints?”

“Out of date. The instincts they’re trying to instil in you—they’ll fade with time. If you let them.”

“They’re really loud,” Ametrine admitted in a near-whisper. “I didn’t notice it at first because everything they told me made sense, but I was alone and there wasn’t any fighting and I couldn’t do what I was supposed to.”

“That’s okay,” Summer assured her. “I know it’s very hard to think past what you’re told at first, but the more you do it, the easier it’ll get, and the quieter your imprints will seem until one day? They’ll be gone. Even Gems who follow the imprints lose them soon enough. It’s natural.”

“But aren’t I supposed to do what they’re telling me to do?”

“Listen to me.” Summer reached out and took Ametrine’s hands in her own, leaning forward. “The people who wanted those things from you aren’t here anymore. There’s no one left to anger or disappoint by ignoring them. Why don’t you think about what _you_ want to do? Try new things, see if there’s something you enjoy. You’re a Remnan Gem. A Gem of _Free_ Remnant. And that means the only person who gets to decide your future is you. _You_ get to choose who you want to be and how you want to live.” She glanced over at Ozpin, who had maintained his distance but was watching them sidelong. The expression on his face had softened again, to something that was either admiration or approval or something in-between.

What _was_ the relationship there, Ametrine wondered, when Ozpin called Summer _lady_ yet Summer called Ozpin _teacher?_ She’d told him to stand down, but he hadn’t obeyed until she’d _talked_ him down. Who was in command? Who was the real threat to her? If she only knew Ozpin’s Gem type, she’d—

…She’d know nothing more than she did now. Because it…didn’t matter?

“Why don’t you come with us?” Summer suggested. “There’s plenty of room back at Beacon—that’s what our base is called, Beacon. It’s where we live. You could meet other Gems there. Some of them were like you, Gems that emerged after the war.”

Ametrine expected Ozpin to jump in and protest, but he remained silent.

“I know this must be scary, but maybe once you learn a little more about this world and about us, you’ll feel better. What do you say?”

* * *

“What _could_ I say? I had no idea what was going on, and exactly _one_ person was offering to help me out. There wasn’t really anything I could do but go for it.”

* * *

Ametrine had been at Beacon for three days, and in that time she had learned three things:

  1. Ametrine was one of the only Gems on Remnant who hadn’t made up a name for herself.
  2. Summer was very nice, and Ametrine liked her.
  3. Ozpin was also very nice, but Ametrine did not like him.



“He smiles _all the time,”_ she complained to Summer once. “How do you know when he means it?”

“Think of him like a really overwrought piece of classic literature,” Summer suggested. “Hard to read, but worth it.”

Ametrine crossed her arms. “Think I preferred it when he was threatening me.”

She also learned, soon enough, that she was one of very few people who spoke to Summer like that. Ozpin was far from the only Gem who called her _Lady Rose,_ and the others who did treated her like the next-closest thing to a Diamond.

“Well, no.” Summer winced. “It’s not _that_ bad. If they were treating me like a Diamond, they wouldn’t talk to me at all unless I talked to them first.”

But for being in charge, Summer sure did seem to prefer fading into the background. She also seemed to have a lot more spare time than Ametrine thought she should, not that the younger Quartz was complaining—Summer was spending most of that time with _her,_ which gave her this weird kind of warm feeling in her chest even as the guilt started to creep up on her.

“Oh, Ozpin’s used to handling the day-to-day on his own,” Summer said airily, waving a hand around. “He’s got a knack for administration. Just goes to show how little a Gem’s type has to do with what they’re really good at. Have you given any thought to what you might like to try doing?”

Ametrine hesitated. “Maybe I could start with fighting monsters? I know it’s not really breaking the Quartz mould. But you need Huntsmen, and maybe I’ll be a good one.”

Summer put a hand over Ametrine’s. “I’m sure you’ll be a great Huntress, if that’s really what you want to do. Remember, you can always change your mind later!”

Ametrine wouldn’t be the first to change her mind, she knew. Gems had been losing their zeal for hunting for a long while, and once she’d learned what the monsters were— _who_ they had been—she couldn’t really blame them. But it had left Beacon short-handed at a time when it really, _really_ needed not to be, and from what she could tell from the numbers, there hadn’t ever been enough Gems to make a substantial dent in the monster threat. That didn’t stop Summer from trying, though. Ametrine wouldn’t let it stop her, either.

Ozpin, however, had other ideas. Naturally.

“You want to go out hunting with her,” he repeated, giving Summer a level stare from across his desk. She’d summoned her armour in preparation for going out; he had dismissed his, and Ametrine found him vastly less threatening in the absence of plate and mail. “Alone.”

“I want to assess what she already knows about fighting,” Summer explained, putting a hand on her hip. “And I want to give her a chance to see if this is something that she finds engaging before she pours all her time and energy into combat training.”

“A fair point,” Ozpin conceded. Ametrine snorted softly from her position behind Summer. She doubted he was giving much consideration to _her_ time and energy; it was whoever would end up training her that he was concerned about _wasting_ on her. Especially if that someone ended up being Summer, who had made Ametrine promise to stay out of the conversation.

So she was staying as far back physically as possible without completely ditching Summer: leaning against the front edge of Rose Quartz’s desk, which sat opposite Ozpin’s on the massive top floor of Beacon Tower. Clockwork rumbled and churned overhead, strangely muted. Rosy red light spilled between the moving cogs, tinting the room warmly from overhead in addition to the sunlight pouring through the giant glass clock face to Ametrine’s left.

 _Mechanical_ technology, apparently, was the future, even though it was inherently less advanced than the sort of tech the Gems had brought with them. Something about _reliability_ or _sustainability,_ Ametrine had only sort of been listening. Ozpin had been the one talking, him and some manic Sphene (one of the Gems who was actually cool around Summer, she’d learn his name eventually) who kept referencing things like _the Gamma White Energy Crisis_ or _the Epsilon Yellow Resource Deficit._ Yawn.

“So we’re agreed,” Summer said briskly, clapping her hands together. Ozpin frowned minutely.

“I’m sure I don’t recall saying any such thing.”

“Fortunately, I don’t need your approval.” Summer smiled. “I’m here to inform you, not to ask your permission. Commander.”

“Lady,” Ozpin replied with a faint, rueful smile and a concessionary tilt of the head.

Summer reached out and tapped the edge of the little box on Ozpin’s desk. Qrow’s Gemstone gleamed against the cloth lining. “If he re-forms while we’re gone, bring him up to speed, will you? The last thing we need is a senior Huntsman brawling with a new recruit.”

“Or for the Hunt to learn its newest recruit nearly killed said senior Huntsman, when inevitably people start asking after the _casus belli,”_ Ozpin added dryly. “Of course.”

“Maybe if he’d watched his back better,” Ametrine couldn’t help but suggest, earning a plaintive look from Summer (which shut her up) and a stony one from Ozpin (which made it really tempting to keep going).

Then, to her surprise, Ozpin shook his head, that strange little smile coming back to his face. “He really should have, shouldn’t he? Take care out there. Call if you need backup.”

* * *

“Did you?” Ruby asked.

“Pfff. No. Summer straight-up easy-moded me—took me out to Patch. Didn’t even break a sweat.”

“…Gems don’t sweat.”

“You know what I meant!”

* * *

“Come here,” Summer had said, ducking under a tree branch and waving for Ametrine to follow. Still riding the high of her first successful hunt (even if Summer had done most of the heavy lifting), Ametrine didn’t even think of protesting, practically bouncing along after her. And now:

“Here we are!” Summer spread her arms wide and beamed at Ametrine, turning to indicate the view as a whole.

“Oh wow,” Ametrine breathed, stepping closer. They stood near the edge of a cliff overlooking a verdant valley. She could see a stream cutting through the dense thicket of trees below.

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” Summer lowered herself to the ground, her feet dangling over the edge of the cliff, her cloak fluttering gently in the breeze. “This is my favourite spot in the whole world.”

“Right here?”

“Right here. Listen to that, do you hear it? Birds and bugs, leaves and water, and just… _quiet._ ” She took in a deep breath, as if savouring the air, then let it out in a huge, satisfied sigh. “I just like being here. Away from the bustle at Beacon or the organic settlements. I think I could be happy for the rest of my life, if I got to spend it here.”

“So why don’t you?” Ametrine asked, sitting down next to her.

“Oh…” She shook her head. “My Rebellion, my Gems, my Hunt. I can’t just walk out on it all.”

“Didn’t you literally _just_ walk out and leave someone else in charge?”

“Well. Yeah, but…”

“But what?”

“I have responsibilities,” Summer protested.

“Which you’ve been blowing off for days to hang out with me. Not that I’m complaining, but clearly the Hunt doesn’t fall apart when you’re not around.” Ametrine’s eyes widened as her words caught up with her. “I’m not trying to say you aren’t important! I know you are! But you…you actually hate being in charge, don’t you?”

“Hate…” Summer furrowed her brow. “No, I don’t think that’s it. I don’t really have any problems _leading,_ but…especially as time goes on and the organics build up their civilisations, there’s so much… _politics,_ and deal-making, and treaty-signing—we had to draft an entire code of laws for Remnan Gems, and we have to tweak them _constantly_ because of things we overlooked or organic rules or customs we forgot to allow for or _couldn’t_ allow for because they didn’t _exist_ a thousand years ago, and—”

“And you hate it,” Ametrine finished.

“I’m _good_ at it.”

“But wasn’t that part of why you started the Rebellion? So that Gems could do what we wanted, not just what we’re good at?”

“I…”

“Summer…you keep asking me what I want, but what do _you_ want?”

Summer stared at her. Then, very softly, she laughed, something like wonder spreading over her features.

* * *

“So _you’re_ the one who talked Mom into stepping down!”

“I don’t think there was anyone who could have talked your mom into anything. But I guess I made her think about it more seriously. A few years later, she announced she was officially turning the Hunt over to Ozpin. She kept hunting, obviously, we all did. But she never really spent a lot of time at Beacon after that. Neither did I. She asked me to come live on Patch with her, and we started building her dream house.” Yang paused, then clicked her tongue ruefully. “It did not go well.”

* * *

“Maybe we should have gotten a Bismuth to help,” Qrow said, looking at the sagging wooden frame. “Or a—I don’t know, do we even have carpenters?”

“Shut up! We got this!” Yang smacked his shoulder, getting a narrow-eyed look in return.

“Watch it, _pipsqueak.”_

“You don’t scare me, _old man!”_

“Hey, hey, no fighting!” Summer called from where she was crouched down, peering at the foundation.

Qrow rolled his eyes. Yang smacked him again.

“Hey!”

“I heard that! Yang, no hitting!”

“He started it!”

“The hell I did!”

Yang crossed her arms, tossing her hair. “Probably trying to make up for how he went down like a _bitch_ when we met.”

“You jumped me from behind!” Qrow objected.

“Still kicked your ass!”

“If I were a philosophical Gem,” Summer said calmly, standing and brushing the loose earth and dust from her skirt, “I would make a profound statement about foundations and the strength that comes from working together in harmony. I’m not, and we suck at laying foundations, and I think we got some of the angles wrong on the frame. I think we need an organic. Maybe someone who’s actually built a house before.”

“Whoa, hey,” Qrow protested. “We did the physical labour part just fine!”

“Yeah! It’s the whole—math-y, planning thing that tripped us up! We don’t need an organic, we just need an obsessive nerd with a basic understanding of physics and a talent for drawing straight lines.”

“Huh,” said Summer, exchanging a glance with Qrow.

* * *

“What you _needed,”_ Ozpin stressed, “was _common sense_ and a _flat surface.”_

“Well, would you look at that!” Summer said brightly, beaming at the much more promising proto-house before them now. “Hey, while you’re here, do you think you and Qrow could get together with some of our engineers and set us up with a warp?”

“Isn’t that going to infringe on your desire for solitude?”

“Who said anything about solitude? I’m going to have Yang with me—and Qrow, if he agrees.”

“He will,” Ozpin assured her. “There’s no power in the universe that could keep him from your side.”

Summer smiled fondly. “I don’t deserve him.”

“You’re partners. I don’t think it’s for either of you to decide whether you deserve each other. That die is already cast.”

“Well, they’re not going to stop hunting, and neither am I for that matter, so having a way to get around quickly seems like a good idea. Besides…” Summer bit her lip. “I thought the new Commander of the Hunt might appreciate a shorter commute.”

“What,” Yang said loudly, dropping the beam she was carrying.

 _“Shit_ —Yang, what the hell?” Qrow demanded, struggling to yank his foot out from under the heavy length of wood without dropping his own armload of building materials.

“You don’t have to stay,” Summer hastened to add, “but…you’re family, Oz. S-so, whether you choose to live here or not, this is your home too.”

Ozpin failed to reply.

“Maybe you could at least come visit?” Summer suggested half-heartedly, her face falling.

“Summer.” His hand settled on her shoulder. “Of course I’ll stay.”

 _Oh,_ Yang realised, seeing him smile. _That’s how you know when he means it._

* * *

“It was a little rough at first, all of us getting used to spending so much time together without anyone else around—especially with me being new to the family and Ozpin not being around half the time. But we figured it out eventually. Worked out old grudges…”

* * *

Yang hit the ground hard, trying to tuck into a roll but just a little too slow—that _damn cane_ was at her throat again, and in a moment she’d hear the all-too-familiar command to—

“Yield.”

“Ugh, _fine,”_ she groaned, rolling her eyes.

Ozpin retracted his cane and bent down, offering his hand. “Your reaction time is getting better. You’ll be dodging that attack easily soon.”

“You think so?”

“Have I ever lied—”

“Yes.”

 _“—to spare your feelings_ before?” He narrowed his eyes in acknowledgment of the hit, but kept smiling. Yang could spot the fake smiles about as well as anyone could by now, so it was with a smirk of her own that she replied.

“Good point. Since when have you given a crap about my feelings?” She clasped her hand tight around his and let him help her up.

* * *

“…built up routines…”

* * *

“No, don’t!” Qrow hissed, catching Yang’s arm before she could knock on Summer’s door. “It’s tea-and-cookies-quiet-time, remember?”

“Oh, shoot!” Now that Yang listened, she could hear the gentle clink of a teapot’s spout against the rim of a cup. “I forgot she had a new book.”

“Last one in that series she’s been waiting on all decade. So unless it’s life-or-death…”

“Yeah…I’ll just come back later.”

“Stop whispering outside my door!” Summer called, annoyed.

* * *

“…made a home.” Yang smiled. “It’s all she really wanted, you know? Your mom. She just wanted to be together with the people she loved most.”

“And she was.” Ruby touched her Gemstone. “She got to live her dream for four thousand years.”

“I’m not saying it was always paradise. But it was ours. It _is_ ours,” Yang said, putting an arm around Ruby’s shoulders. “And we’re gonna do everything we can to keep it safe.”

Ruby hugged her. “I love you, Yang.”

“Love you too, Rubes.”

* * *

Luck. It was pure, dumb luck that had gotten her this far, and Scapolite knew it.

Well, luck and the Record. She’d worked out how to look things up in it now. It knew exactly where every warp on the planet was, and when she’d had a twinge of pseudo-memory about the one on Patch, it had been able to tell her about the day of its construction, that it was made by Rebels as a closed-circuit warp—one-way to Beacon and back. She wasn’t about to risk teleporting right into enemy hands, even if she could work out how to make Beacon’s warp take her somewhere she’d be safe. There was just too much risk involved in getting there in the first place.

She knew the forest warp was being watched, so that left her best and only option of getting out of Vale quickly sitting on a little island to the north. And that was where dumb luck came in. It was getting harder and harder to use her powers to shield herself from view, so rather than risking the red forest (and were trees _supposed_ to come in those colours? She wasn’t convinced) she skirted its edge, slipping through the alleys and shadows of the city until she had a clear shot to walk along the coast, just close enough to the treeline to duck under for cover when she heard wings overhead. Usually they were only gulls. She saw a few little black birds, but couldn’t say for sure if they were even the same kind that Qrow had turned into, let alone if they were the Gem himself. Still, better safe than sorry.

Eventually she reached a point where she couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer. It was the closest point to the island that she could reach on dry land. Scapolite shrugged off her coat, wrapped it around the Record, and walked into the sea.

It was eerily like being trapped inside her own cracked Gemstone. Cold, lonely, indistinct, without a single fixed point to count on besides her own vague self-awareness. The focus it took to keep herself moving in a straight line in spite of the lack of landmarks and the powerful tug of the current was intense, and in a way she was grateful. It meant she didn’t have room to think.

When at last she reached the island, she barely had enough strength left to kick herself back to the surface, realising too late that she probably should have used her coat to lash the Record to her body rather than holding it. Flinging herself onto the beach, she heaved in deep breaths just to ease the terrible pressure on her chest, dirty white sand clinging to every inch of her.

 _I made it._ For the first time she could remember, Scapolite felt a fierce, defiant flare of triumph. _I made it!_

She laughed aloud, pounding a fist against the sand as she shouted her victory to the sky.

What the Record couldn’t tell her, she discovered sometime later, was much at all about the other continents. It offered up records of actions and conversations centred _around_ far-off places, but it seemed to know little about the world outside of Vale—and little more about the parts of Vale that lay outside the valley itself. Maybe it had a limited range, Scapolite mused, with an odd twinge of wounded pride. Perhaps her Gemstone had only enabled it to learn and report things that happened nearby.

So she decided to take a risk, pulling her coat back on and fastening the Record into place. She stepped onto the warp and willed it to take her as far away as possible. Somewhere the remains of the Rebellion would never look for her.

Scapolite winced at the sudden brightness lancing into her eyes, raising a hand to shield them as they adjusted. A warm wind blew against her skin, bringing with it— _more sand._ Or dust, or dry, coarse earth—it was kind of difficult to say what this exciting new variety of gritty particulates was, but it was all she could see for quite a distance. Well, that and rocks. Lots of those. She stood in a small courtyard at the top of a long set of stairs, the eroding ruins of some once-grand structure fallen all around her.

“You asked for this,” she reminded herself, then paused. _Salt?_

Maybe it was the residue on her skin—and, eugh, she had chalky white patches on her now, how had she not noticed that before?—but Scapolite could swear she smelled the sea. If she could find it, maybe she’d find some plant life or something that could shelter her while she worked out the next phase of her plan. Or the goal of it, for that matter. Right now the entire thing was one word long: survive.

She set her shoulders, determined, and began to descend the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter: scared Ozpin. This chapter: scary Ozpin. Next chapter: *checks notes* uh looks like a strong chance of no Ozpin, actually. So much for the rule of three.
> 
> Flashbacks are a formatting nightmare, ngl. Page breaks? No page breaks? Centred text? Italics? agghghgh anyway I was not actually planning for Summer to appear in person so soon, much less to be such a strong presence! I had no idea what to do for her characterisation and I feel like that probably shows a little, but at least that'll make it less jarring when she inevitably turns up alive in canon and immediately contradicts her thousands of fan versions...? Still, Yang has her backstory now, which hopefully adds a bit more dimension to her relationships with the others and context for her reactions to Blakolite, Pennydot, and the whole notion of Homeworld and the Gem War. And, honestly, it was kind of nice to take a break from rising action! Although now we have the matter of where Blake is and what she intends to do...
> 
> Next chapter should *theoretically* see the anticipated(?) return of Jaune and Pyrrha, who have languished too long in the background. Next chapter also actually owes slightly more to RWBY than SU by way of plot, so there's that. As always, comments are always appreciated, as is your readership! Thanks for sticking with me! See you next time!


	13. Losing Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby sets off into the Forest of Forever Fall at the head of a band of intrepid adventurers: Pyrrha Nikos, Jaune Arc, and...Cardin Winchester?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter kicked my ass thoroughly and repeatedly. In short, the chapter I intended to write all the way up until I actually sat down to write it no longer made sense. I failed to notice this problem coming down the pike and so had to grapple with it in real time, and it threw me for more loops than a custom Hot Wheels track constructed by a hyperactive six-year-old. So if you were wondering what was taking so long to write one single chapter, it's that I wrote this one single chapter many times over, and mind you I'm a first-draft-is-final kind of writer. The only thing I am more tired of than reworking this chapter is the soul-crushing ever-increasing weight of the knowledge that this chapter SOMEHOW wasn't done yet.
> 
> And you know what? The fact that I took so long to publish this that we now know exactly how Ruby's Semblance works? Irrelevant. I'm sticking with flower petals and soft physics. Because it's Gem magic and I can and in the name of all that I love I *cannot rewrite this chapter again*.  
> It's not perfect, but it's done, it's here, I'm as close to happy with it as my overblown perfectionist streak will let me be, and hopefully it's good enough to make up for my long, albeit unintentional, absence. Whew. Let’s go.

It wasn’t often that people knocked at the door of the Rose Quartz residence—visitors were largely limited to Taiyang and lately Weiss, with the occasional surprise drop-in from Dr. Oobleck, and all of them were allowed to walk right in. Occasionally there was a Gem in town who needed access to Beacon’s warp, but they always contacted Qrow or Ozpin ahead of time and never actually entered the house. So when Ruby heard a polite flurry of quiet raps ring out through the first floor, her initial response was to stare at the door in alarm.

Only when the sequence repeated did she shove her textbook to the side and get up, feeling a little apprehensive as she approached the door.

_You’re being ridiculous. Yang probably just ordered some parts or something and forgot she’d need to sign for them._

But when she opened the door, she found Pyrrha standing there with Jaune a few paces behind her on her left and Weiss even farther back on her right.

“Hello?” Ruby said hesitantly, looking them over. All three were still in their brown-and-blue Signal Academy uniforms. Jaune and Pyrrha were working fewer hours at the Bakehouse now that school was in session, so it wasn’t _too_ weird that they were still on Patch. But why were they _here?_

“Hello, Ruby,” Pyrrha said, flashing a wan smile at her. She and Jaune both looked rather harassed, now Ruby looked closer; Weiss, for her part, was wearing her signature Done look, equal parts irritated and bored. “May we come in?”

Ruby blinked, straightening as she realised she’d slouched against the doorframe. “Oh! Sure! I’m sorry, please come in.” She stepped back, gesturing for them to walk past her. Pyrrha did so with her eyes fixed straight ahead, her hands clasped in front of her, while Jaune looked around with a slightly nervous air. Weiss trudged in after them with a noisy sigh, giving Ruby a sideways glance she wanted to class as commiseration, only she wasn’t sure what she was apparently meant to be miserating about.

“Sorry,” Ruby said again, slipping past them to grab her textbook and close it, setting it down on the coffee table. “You guys can sit wherever. Um, I can go make some tea if people want…?”

“I’ll do it,” Weiss said immediately, dropping her bag beside the couch and heading for the kitchen.

“Oh, you don’t have…to…okay.”

“We’re sorry for dropping in on you unexpectedly,” Pyrrha said rather formally, settling herself into Ozpin’s usual chair and folding her hands in her lap. “We should have called ahead.”

“No, it’s fine. Weiss just drops by after school a lot too.” Well, a couple times a week for the last few weeks since school had begun. “I was just surprised, that’s all. I don’t mind,” she assured them. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more prepared for people to show up. We, uh, we don’t get a lot of visitors.”

“Your house is pretty cool!” Jaune blurted out into the short but awkward silence that followed. “Y’know, the parts I can see. Which is…most of it, I think.”

“Yyyeah, the Gems didn’t have a super clear concept when they built the place. The second floor’s got individual rooms, but they did a weird open-plan thing down here. The kitchen’s only sorta walled-off the way it is ’cause they added it so much later.” Ruby gestured vaguely. “Which…isn’t important. I’m sorry,” she said again.

Jaune huffed out a laugh. “Chill, Ruby. You’re apologising harder than Pyrrha. Uh—not that apologising is a bad thing!” he added when Pyrrha looked over at him. “Just, some things don’t need apologies, that’s all.”

“Well, maybe _we_ should be apologising a little more,” Pyrrha said, just a little pointed. “We’re not just here on a social visit, Ruby. We need your help.”

“I’m not part of _we,”_ Weiss called.

“Jaune and I need your help,” Pyrrha amended.

“And we may have sorta badgered Weiss until she agreed to show us where you live so we could ask you in person.” Jaune’s grip on his knees tightened as he hunched forward in his seat. “By which I mean we definitely did that. I don’t think she’s very happy with us.”

“I’m _not,_ and if I didn’t know you three were already friends, I would have made sure your next serenade came out in soprano!”

“What, no consequences for Pyrrha?” Jaune spluttered.

Weiss leaned out from the kitchen, glaring at him. “Oh, I think I could make you suffer enough for the both of you.”

Jaune paled. Pyrrha’s hands clenched tighter around each other. “We’re very sorry, and very grateful to you, Weiss.”

“Very, very grateful,” Jaune added swiftly. “So grateful.”

“Okaaaay,” Ruby drawled, her eyes darting between the three of them. “So, what did you guys need my help with?”

“A school project,” Jaune said, at the same time Pyrrha said, “A bully problem.”

Pyrrha sighed. “A _group_ project…where the third member of our group is a bully.”

“I _swear_ I didn’t know he was a jerk when I tried making friends with him,” Jaune insisted.

“Clearly, no one’s interested in starting from the beginning,” Weiss said dryly, stepping around Jaune’s chair and bending just slightly at the waist to set a laden tea-tray down on the coffee table. “So I suppose that’s my job.”

“Uh, I actually already have a question!” Ruby interrupted. “Since when do we own a tea set?”

“Since always, I’d assume?” Weiss looked nonplussed. “It was in the china closet.”

“The what now?”

“Ruby, have you ever actually been in your own dining room?”

“Of course I have!” She wilted slightly. “I mean, mostly I just eat at the counter, so I don’t go in there a ton, but—”

Weiss pointed across the house. “Your dining room is literally just the other half of your living room!”

Even Ruby wasn’t sure what her mumbled response to that was, except that it included a reprise of the phrase ‘open-plan’.

“Weiss is right,” Pyrrha interjected. “We should start at the beginning.” She looked at Jaune.

“Me?”

“You’re the one who was there.”

“Oh. Right. Well…”

* * *

The beginning, as it turned out, was much like the middle, in that it involved Signal Academy, a Biology class, and Jaune’s inadvertent acquaintanceship with a bully. Rather than pairing off lab partners purely alphabetically, the teacher had decided to do so by working from each end of the attendance roll towards the middle. This put the first student on the list—Arc, Jaune—with the last—Winchester, Cardin.

It hadn’t gone terribly. Cardin didn’t look enthused about it, but the sour look on his face had been there since the teacher had walked in, so Jaune figured he was safe in assuming it was the class that had earned Cardin’s ire, not Jaune himself. Cardin had given him an assessing gaze as he sat down, but whatever he’d seen apparently wasn’t worth commenting on, as he didn’t say a word until the last pair had been decided and they had been urged to introduce themselves to their partners.

“Arc, huh?” This time, some thought seemed to strike Cardin, as he looked Jaune over again. “Any relation?”

Jaune tipped his head, squinting slightly in confusion. “To…?” _Dammit. Did the Arc sibling legacy follow me after all?_

“Auréolin Arc,” Cardin said, as if it were perfectly obvious and Jaune were dim for not realising. “. Pretty much _the_ last great Huntsman in a hundred years.”

 _“Oh.”_ The sight of the sword and shield over the mantel at home finally clicked. "Yeah, actually. He was my great-great-grandfather. Sorry, people don't usually ask that far back about my family tree. Usually if they know anyone I'm related to, it's one of my sisters. What about you? Any siblings?"

“Not a one.” Cardin puffed out his chest. “It’s down to me to carry on the Winchester legacy.”

“Legacy?”

Cardin nodded, smirking. “Something we’ve got in common. Winchesters have been hunting for generations. It’s the family business.”

“Oh.” Jaune blinked. “I didn’t think there was much call for organic Huntsmen these days. It’s cool, though!” he added swiftly as Cardin’s eyes narrowed. “Really. I’ve actually got a friend who’s training to be a Huntress. It’s, uh, kind of her family’s business, too.”

“As long as there’s monsters left on Remnant, there’s a place for Huntsmen,” Cardin said firmly. “The Gems were crazy to shut down Beacon Academy just because of, what, a little political pressure and some cash-flow problems? The Hunt was strong enough to take what it needed to keep itself going on a large scale. If the old Commander had just manned up and done it, there wouldn’t be a single Gem monster left.” He snorted. “But I guess you can’t expect a bunch of holograms to show some backbone, right? Since they don’t even have spines. And it’s not like the Commander was a real man anyway—”

* * *

“Uh, he’s not home, is he?” Jaune asked suddenly, glancing up towards the ceiling.

“Nope,” said Ruby, relaxing her clenched fists. She reminded herself that Ozpin would probably be more amused than offended at Cardin’s opinion of him and of Gems in general; he’d amiably concede the point about his gender and about spines, even. She briefly entertained herself by picturing Cardin’s reaction—as best she could without knowing what he looked like. “I don’t think he’d really be bothered by what some random guy in your Biology class thinks, anyway,” she said aloud, as much to reassure herself as anyone else.

She didn’t know if Cardin had said anything about her mother, too, and she didn’t ask, because she was supposed to be helping Jaune and Pyrrha, not marching out the door to hunt down a teenage boy and dangle him over the nearest cliff by his ankles. Fortunately, Jaune decided to skip paraphrasing the rest of the conversation, glossing over it by saying “So anyway, by the time five minutes were up it was pretty clear this guy thought Remnant’s Golden Age was _before_ the Liberation Wars, which is…not great.” He winced. “I’m sure it was great having people look up to Huntsmen more and the job was probably easier back when the Hunt had more clout, but…?”

“…Is he just nostalgic for the glory days of Huntsmen or is he actually pro-militarisation?” Ruby asked warily.

Jaune shook his head. “I could not tell.”

“Either way, he’s proven to be unpleasant,” Pyrrha said. “His attitude in class ranges from dismissive to disrespectful, and his behaviour between periods is even worse. And that’s without getting into the sorts of things I’ve overheard him say about some of the Faunus students.”

“All five of them at Signal Academy,” Jaune added dryly.

Pyrrha’s expression was somewhat vexed as she admitted, “I don’t understand why he’s popular.”

“He’s confident, good at sports, and conventionally attractive,” Weiss said, sipping at her tea. “There’s no mystery to it. People love an underdog, but given the choice, they’d rather latch onto a sure thing, and Cardin’s it.”

“Aren’t _you_ confident, good at sports, and conventionally attractive?” Ruby asked her. “One sport, anyway. And, Pyrrha, you too!”

Jaune fidgeted, but said nothing. Pyrrha just looked uncomfortable. “You know how I feel about being the centre of attention…and besides, there’s…” She glanced at Jaune. “Other factors.”

His eyebrows shot up as he seemed to process that.

Weiss had gone pink, and was refusing to look Ruby in the eye. “I don’t have room in my schedule for additional socialising,” she declared. “Besides, all of my _important_ school connections will be forged at university-level or above.”

 _She totally scared them all off,_ Ruby concluded sadly.

“Don’t give me that look!” Weiss snapped at her. “Don’t I have enough on my plate with you and your ridiculous adventures?”

Ruby let that sink in, then smiled, touched. “Aw, Weiss.”

“Why are we talking about _me,_ anyway? _I’m_ not even part of this mess.” Weiss tossed her hair haughtily. “We were talking about Cardin and his attitude problem.”

“Well, he’s not wrong about the whole still-needing-Huntsmen thing,” Ruby reflected. “And…I guess I can respect that he seems to wanna hunt for the right reasons? Even if he’s not the nicest. The other stuff, though…”

Pyrrha tilted her head in something that wasn’t _quite_ a nod—if any one motion could be said to embody the spirit of _begrudging agreement,_ this was it. She did add, though, “This seems like a good time to mention that he _also_ brought up his family being Huntsmen as one of his three ‘fun facts about himself’ when he introduced himself in homeroom.”

“I brag about my family a lot. It’s good to be proud of the people you love.” Ruby wasn’t sure why she was devil’s-advocating so hard for Cardin right now, unless it was to make up for the violent fantasy of earlier. _But no one’s bad right through,_ she reasoned. _Everyone has their good points._ She thought of Scapolite fighting side-by-side with her and Weiss. Peridot, so pleasant and friendly and obviously delighted to be holding a normal conversation even as she talked about conquering Remnant on behalf of her genocidal rulers.

But then there was the _Lamp of Knowledge,_ and Jinn referring to Qrow like he was property, and the hordes of security robots bent on destroying Ruby and Yang for being ‘flawed’, the automated message condemning Charoite for daring to exist. There were the Gems behind all that, the Diamonds that had Scapolite thinking she was safer on the run and slowly dying than staying with Rebels and being healed. The unknown, faceless Homeworld army whose threat had instilled a silent, primal terror inside Ozpin that had nearly torn Ruby’s little family apart. _Having good points_ could only offset so much of being outright bad.

Ruby shook herself, realising she had once again clenched her fists. _Not the point. There’s nothing you can do about that now._ She forced her thoughts back to the present, where Pyrrha was grimacing.

“Pride in his family is understandable, sure,” she allowed, “but considering his other two facts were how much he could bench-press and that he was _‘single but taking offers’,_ I’m pretty sure the only person he was trying to speak well of is himself.”

“Oof.”

“The worst part,” Jaune said miserably, “is he’s confident enough that most of the class _didn’t_ cringe.”

“…You tried to say something like that too, didn’t you?”

He hung his head. “Yeah.”

“Humiliation is good for you,” Weiss told him loftily. “It reminds you not to be stupid the same way twice.”

Pyrrha raised her index finger. “I don’t think that’s…”

Ruby winced. “Yeah, Weiss, that’s a little…”

“Need I remind you which of us has proper training in etiquette and deportment? Social censure is simply the inevitable consequence of failing in public life,” Weiss said with a little shrug, sipping daintily at her tea.

Ruby upgraded her mental image of Weiss’s baggage from a large suitcase to a steamer trunk. _We’re gonna have to unpack that one of these days, aren’t we?_

“Okay, so Cardin sounds like a piece of work,” Ruby conceded, “but what am I supposed to do about that?”

“Well, like Pyrrha mentioned, we have a group project coming up,” Jaune said, glancing over at the athletic redhead, who nodded.

“An environmental survey. Jaune and Cardin were assigned to work with me and my lab partner. Except my partner has the flu…”

“…And mine’s, y’know, Cardin,” Jaune finished, grimacing.

“Still not really seeing how I can help you guys.”

Weiss sighed shortly. “They want access to Forever Fall. For their survey thing.”

“What do you mean ‘access’?” Ruby asked, confused. “It’s a forest. There isn’t even a fence or anything. It’s not super safe, but people camp on the outskirts of the Emerald Forest all the time. I’m sure if you keep in sight of the treeline, you’ll be fine. …What?”

Weiss, Jaune, and Pyrrha were all staring at her. Then Weiss raised her eyes to the heavens, sighing more deeply this time.

“The Forest of Forever Fall is private property, Ruby. It’s owned by Rose Quartz. AKA, _you._ ”

Ruby looked down at the front of her hoodie, as if she could see her Gemstone through the fabric. “I own a forest? People can own forests?”

“Since you’re a minor,” Weiss said briskly, “you can’t make any real estate decisions regarding the property unless whoever’s administering the property in your name agrees, but you either inherited it from your mom or retained her legal claim to it through sharing her Gemstone. It hasn’t officially changed hands.”

“How do you even know that? _I_ didn’t know any of that!”

Weiss looked a little uncomfortable, setting her cup back down on the saucer in her other hand. “My father’s been trying to acquire Forever Fall since before I was born. The roadblocks he keeps running into are a pretty common dinner-table topic.”

Ruby frowned, shaking her head. “Why? I know it’s special because of its history and the whole thing with my mom turning it red somehow, but I don’t see why anyone would want to buy it. Especially a Dust magnate!”

“The timber of Autumnal Bloodwood trees is prized for its unusual colour and grain pattern,” Weiss lectured, sounding as if she were rattling off information directly from the pages of a textbook, “while their sap has valuable pharmacological and possible cosmetological properties, and whoever holds Forever Fall holds exclusive control over both resources. Currently, only trees which have propagated outside the borders of the forest itself may be felled—and that almost never happens—and trees within the forest may only be tapped with the express permission of its custodian.”

“Which would have been Mom…and now me. Or the property’s administrator, like you said.” Which, as a job title, pretty well screamed ‘Ozpin’, unless Qrow had taken it for the petty satisfaction of telling powerful people ‘no’. Either way, Ruby understood a little better now why finding Peridot’s drone there had been such a cause for alarm. Even if it had been designed by an organic or a Remnan Gem, it shouldn’t have been in Forever Fall in the first place, and that had made it a pretty clear sign of _some_ kind of trouble on the horizon. No wonder all four of them had gone out to investigate.

“Considering we’re down a teammate, we were hoping being able to survey an unusual environment would give us more of an edge. Help us stand out in a _positive_ way,” Pyrrha explained.

“Especially since I don’t really see Cardin doing much of the heavy lifting.” Jaune sighed. “And he, uh, he’s kind of got me pegged as a loser by now, so I get the feeling that he’s gonna blame me if we get a bad grade.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Weiss scoffed. “He has only himself to blame if he doesn’t put in a good effort. And only someone who’s had to put up with your ridiculous attempts at flirting gets to call you a loser.”

“Thanks?”

“If we go in from the west, we should be far enough away from the most populous parts of the city that we won’t need to go very deep into the forest,” Pyrrha said, pulling up a map on her scroll. “See? There’s a park at the base of the peninsula. That should be quiet enough for us to take the samples we need and maybe even catalogue some of the indigenous wildlife.”

“What do you mean by samples?” Not that Ruby didn’t trust Jaune and Pyrrha, of all people, but Weiss _had_ just gotten done explaining that the whole reason no one was allowed into Forever Fall was that they’d try to take stuff with them when they left. _And I_ really _don’t need to be grounded again this year._

“Soil, leaves, that kind of stuff.” Jaune shrugged. “Nothing intense. It’s still just a high school project.”

“So you’re thinking, what, a couple hours after school?”

“Tomorrow or the day after,” Pyrrha confirmed. “Saturday would work, but I’d really rather have the full weekend to write up our report, especially since we’re all going to have to collaborate. And I’d like to give my lab partner a chance to look over our notes and contribute a little too. It’d be nice if she got at least partial credit.”

Ruby bit her lip, weighing her options. _Qrow said Forever Fall could be dangerous to organics, but if they’re only going a little way in, how bad could it really get? I’ve seen more monsters in the Emerald Forest than I ever have in there. Heck, who knows how long Zwei was living in there on his own? And the Gems let me wander off on my own the last time we were there, even though I’d only been able to summon my weapon for like a week! It must only get really risky deeper in._

“Okay,” she decided, earning a bright smile from Pyrrha. “On one condition.”

“Yeah?” Jaune sat forward eagerly.

“I’m going with you, just in case something happens. If Forever Fall is really my responsibility, then so’s your safety while you’re in there.” Ruby beamed. “Besides, what kind of a Huntress would I be if I let my own friends get hurt?”

“And I,” Weiss declared, “am in _AP_ Biology, and have nothing to do with this group project thing. I hereby wash my hands of it.”

Which proved, as Ruby would later realise, that Weiss was the smartest person currently in the room.

* * *

Ruby took a deep breath as they advanced past the treeline, making a face as she rotated her wrists inside her gauntlets. Yang’s weapons weren’t her favourite by a long shot, but the gauntlets were the only form her weapon could take that would leave her hands free. It was nerve-wracking enough explaining the whole half-Gem thing to her friends; she’d rather avoid having to explain it to Cardin, and there’d be no getting around it if she summoned a weapon in front of him. Fortunately, since Jaune had already mentioned having a friend who was training to be a Huntress, Cardin hadn’t batted an eye when Ruby had shown up armed. Nor had he done much more than look surprised when she trotted out the ‘raised by Gems’ half-truth to explain how she’d gotten them into Forever Fall in the first place. If anything, she was pretty sure his low grunt and slight nod were meant as an expression of approval.

Ruby had been a little surprised herself, though, when he’d stepped back and let her lead the way into the forest. From the descriptions her friends had given, she’d expected him to be more arrogant and macho about it, maybe even bristle at the idea that a pint-sized preteen girl was there to help protect them. Instead, he’d dropped back to bring up the rear—exactly what he should have done if he were a Huntsman and Ruby were really a licensed Huntress, since Jaune and Pyrrha would be the civilians in that scenario. She glanced back to check on him. Sure enough, he was still there, and—wait.

“Cardin, what is that?” she asked warily.

“Oh, this?” The redheaded teen grinned, smacking the head of the small mace against the palm of his left hand. “I’ve been thinking about naming it _The Executioner,_ but I dunno. Seems a little small for one-hit takedowns.”

“Oh.” That…technically did answer Ruby’s question, but it hadn’t given her the information she’d been looking for.

“You brought a _weapon?”_ Jaune raised his eyebrows, shocked. “Is that even yours? Where did you get it?”

“From my dad’s collection.” Cardin twirled it nonchalantly by the handle. “He’s been training me since I turned fourteen. We’re a Huntsman family, you know. One of the oldest in Vale.”

“Yes, I might have heard that once or twice,” Pyrrha said with a brittle smile. “And you’re naming it. How nice.”

“Huntsmen always name their weapons,” Cardin informed her. “Back me up here, Jaune-y boy.”

“Well…I know my great-great-grandfather named his weapon, but I guess I figured that was a family thing,” Jaune said weakly.

“Crocea Mors,” Cardin said, speaking right over the end of Jaune’s sentence. “Auréolin Arc’s sword and shield. Surprised you didn’t know that, Nikos. I thought you and Arc were joined at the hip.”

Pyrrha looked at Ruby, who shrugged helplessly, at a loss. “I mean…maybe? Dad’s never said anything about his tonfa having names, but I never asked. And the Gems don’t really talk weapons much around me.” She found herself kind of hoping Cardin was right, though, even if it would be satisfying to prove the rude older boy wrong. A named weapon was objectively cooler than a non-named one. _Everyone_ knew that. She’d have to ask someone when she got home.

“Well, _Gem_ Huntsmen.” Cardin rolled his eyes. “They just pull their weapons out of nowhere. They’re holograms, just like their bodies, aren’t they? Why would you bother naming something that isn’t even real?”

“It’s actually a lot more complicated than that,” Ruby protested, trying not to bristle at the implication that three-quarters of her immediate family were just fancy animation models. “And Gems give _themselves_ names, so why wouldn’t they name their weapons?”

“Because their weapons aren’t going to get confused for each other, like Gems would if they went around calling each other _Diamond_ or _Emerald_ or whatever.”

“No, names _matter_ to Remnan Gems,” Ruby insisted. “They _fought a war_ for their names—for the right to be individuals, not just drones. And don’t just casually talk about Diamonds like that, either. It’s a touchy subject.”

He snorted. “What, did they sparkle too aggressively?”

“No, they tried to wipe out every living thing on Remnant and then turned almost all the surviving Gems into mindless murder-monsters out of spite when they couldn’t,” Ruby snapped, shocking herself as much as any of them.

“Oh.” Then there was silence from Cardin, until at length: “Damn.”

“Ruby?” Jaune asked, soft and tentative. “Are you okay?”

 _Clearly not as okay as I thought I was._ “Yeah, I’m cool,” she said, laughing nervously. “Sorry, guys.”

“We should be far enough in now, I think,” Pyrrha said, giving Ruby a concerned look but letting it go. “I’m not seeing any normal plant life anymore. Even the grass is red.”

Ruby stopped and looked around. Sure enough, Pyrrha was right. “And that’s after only like ten minutes of walking. Yeah, we’ll be able to get in and out no problem!”

“Alright, well, you two do your thing,” Cardin said, leaning back against a tree and glancing around with vague interest, tapping the head of his mace against his leg.

Pyrrha’s lips pursed in disapproval, even as she pulled out her scroll to photograph the site. “Aren’t you going to help?”

“I am helping,” Cardin said with a smile. “I’m watching your backs. Who knows what could be out here, just waiting for its chance?”

“That’s the entire reason I came along,” Ruby pointed out, crossing her arms. Her gauntlets _clunked_ against each other, and in the end she was only really able to hold her elbows, which wasn’t nearly as satisfying. “You _three_ should get this done as fast as possible. The less time for something to go wrong, the better.”

Cardin scowled, but Jaune cut off whatever he was about to say. “Uh, I think she’s right. It looks like there’s some fog rolling in…”

“Fog?” Pyrrha frowned. “I suppose we aren’t _too_ far from the coast… It could be coming off the ocean. It’s pretty sunny, though, and it wasn’t in the forecast.”

But Jaune was correct: slowly but surely, a haze was making its way through the trees, blurring their view.

“This doesn’t look right,” Jaune said abruptly. “We should turn back.”

“Jaune-y boy’s scared of a low-hanging cloud. Wow.” Cardin straightened and pushed away from the tree. “Alright, hand me a trowel. Let’s get this over with.”

“We _are_ already here,” Pyrrha conceded reluctantly as Jaune shrugged off his backpack, rummaging around. She looked increasingly worried, her brow furrowing, her tense limbs held close to her body.

“Ugh.” Cardin made a face as he crouched down. “Grass is already soaked. Great.”

 _…But if the grass is wet from an ocean fog, shouldn’t_ we _be getting wet?_ Ruby mimicked Cardin’s posture, running a hand over the grass. Beads of moisture transferred from each blade to her fingers, the grass laying in a flattened smear in the wake of her palm.

“It’s not fog,” she realised. “It’s _mist._ It’s rising from the ground.”

“Oh! Well, that explains it,” Pyrrha said, a bit more cheerfully. “Autumn mists aren’t unusual.”

“I don’t know. Something about this doesn’t seem right. The ground feels cold, so where’s the warmth coming from to make the mist?”

“So we’ll put it in the paper,” Cardin said, screwing shut a sample jar full of reddish earth. “Maybe Goldfinch’ll get a kick out of it and tack on a couple points. Here, gimme another container. We can bring back some fancy Forever Fall mist-water.”

Ruby was liking this less and less. She shook the moisture from her hand. “Okay, just make it—ack!” A few drops got in her open mouth, taking her off-guard.

 _It’s kind of…salty? Is that because of the ocean? Would that change the water in the ground? Maybe near the beach, but the whole_ forest? _I shouldn’t be so hung up on this. But it’s weird, right? This whole thing. And lately_ weird’s _just been another word for—_

A loud crashing sound broke through her musing.

_—dangerous._

“Incoming!” Jaune hollered, reeling back from the sound, his eyes wide. “Run!”

An instant later, Ruby saw what he had: a massive boar, its hide fire-truck red, pinkish moss and lichen hanging from its huge, scarred tusks. And it was charging right for them.

“Alright, some action!” Cardin cheered, spinning his mace. “Hey, Ruby, where are you going?”

“That’s not a monster!” Ruby burst into petals, swinging back to grab him by the front of his jacket and dashing after Jaune as fast as her corporeal form could move, Cardin stumbling along behind her. Pyrrha was running at a graceful, effortless lope off to their left. “It’s an animal that’s been changed somehow, like Zwei!”

“What the hell is a Zwei? And _how did you do that!?”_

“Just run!” Ruby released him, focusing her energy on going back the way they came, trying not to dwell on the thunderous sound of the boar’s pursuit. “If it follows us out, we can worry! We’re not too far in! Pyrrha, do you see Jaune?” The athlete had passed them both easily, by now several yards ahead of Ruby.

“I see him! We’re still together!”

A glance back confirmed that Cardin was still moving with the pack as well—and that the boar wasn’t far behind. The boar, in fact, was gaining fast.

_What the heck are you supposed to do when you’re being chased by a boar? Why do I know so much more about dealing with bear attacks than boar attacks!? There should be procedures for this!_

“We’re not going to outrun it!” Pyrrha yelled. “Jaune, you need to get up a tree!”

 _Oh yeah. Pigs can’t climb!_ But neither could Cardin, with the boar hot on his heels and his only hope of defending himself clutched tight in one hand.

“You too!” Ruby called to Pyrrha, before once again breaking down into petals and doubling back for Cardin.

“Whoa!”

“Think fast!” she ordered, calling on every ounce of her Gem strength and grabbing him around the waist, heaving mightily. She ran for a sturdy-looking tree and tossed him forward into the boughs, more running up the trunk than actually climbing among the branches.

Cardin, to his credit, had indeed thought fast; his mace was now clenched between his teeth as he clung to a branch for dear life, scrabbling awkwardly against the trunk as he searched for a foothold.

“Here!” Ruby reached down, wrapping one arm around a branch and extending her other hand as far as she could. Cardin reached for her and then pushed off hard from his perch, grabbing wildly for another handhold as he caught her wrist, mercifully braced by the mechanical gauntlet encasing it. Ruby grit her teeth against the pain, which lessened within moments as Cardin caught hold of a higher branch, releasing her in order to swing himself up. He yanked the mace from his mouth and shoved its handle through his belt.

“Are we high enough?” he demanded.

“I sure hope so!” Ruby looked around desperately. She couldn’t see Jaune or Pyrrha on the ground anymore, but she couldn’t see much of anything else, either; the mist had gotten so thick she couldn’t see past the circumference of their tree’s branches.

The boar burst into view, shedding trails of mist. Ruby expected it to charge their tree, but it simply gave an angry snort and thundered right past, following the route of their flight.

“It’s having an even harder time seeing than we are,” she realised as it vanished from sight. “And the mist must be making it hard to track our scent.”

“How are we going to know when it’s safe to get down?”

“I guess when it’s quiet?” But the mist was deadening sound, too. Silence had already fallen in the moments since the boar had passed them. Frowning, Ruby pulled out her scroll, opening a group text with Jaune and Pyrrha.

5:13 PM

you guys get up in time??

She held her breath, staring down at the screen and waiting. The air came out in a rush when her scroll buzzed in her grip.

PYRRHA 5:13 PM

Just barely.

JAUNE 5:13 PM

y

Jed

*yes

“The others are okay,” she told Cardin, who nodded mutely, gripping his branch tighter as he scanned what little they could see of the ground. “I think we should give it a few minutes before we try to get down. Just in case.”

“Sure.”

Ruby relayed the plan to Jaune and Pyrrha and settled in to wait, leaning back against the trunk of the tree. A thought struck her, and she composed a quick text to Yang asking about the boar. The Gems had been perplexed enough by Zwei; now it turned out there were more creatures like him? Was it a recent phenomenon, or was it sheer coincidence that no one had tripped across the mutated wildlife of Forever Fall before now?

_I guess if no one really comes here…the Gems don’t have a lot of great memories about this place so I doubt they hang out here much, and anyone allowed to tap the trees like Weiss said probably wouldn’t bother going too far in._

Several minutes passed with no sign of danger and no response from Yang.

“I think we’re probably good now,” she called up to Cardin, sending the same message to Jaune and Pyrrha. Before she started climbing down, she checked back on her conversation with Yang, frowning as she saw the tiny print beside her own text—Not Delivered. One look at the upper left of her screen told her the problem wasn’t on Yang’s end. She’d only reached Jaune and Pyrrha on local transmission, device-to-device. “Come on, _seriously?_ Every time…”

* * *

Everyone had been a little shaky when they’d regrouped—Ruby, in fact, had the surreal experience of being the calmest one of the bunch. Tai and the Gems were pretty matter-of-fact about danger, and Weiss had taken to at least feigning serenity in the face of the unexpected. No one had argued when she’d suggested they head back to civilisation.

No one, that is, except for Forever Fall itself.

“Are we _sure_ we’re going the right way?” Pyrrha asked for the second time.

“Yes?” Ruby replied, a great deal less certain than she had been the first time. “We haven’t turned once. And we’re definitely pointing the way we came…at least, I thought we were. Does anyone have a compass?”

“On my scroll,” came out nearly in sync from the other three members of the party.

“Yeah…I don’t think that’s gonna do a whole lot of good,” she said mournfully, looking down at the screen of her own device. The animated needle on the compass graphic spun lazily in broad, useless arcs, pitching and tilting as she shifted her hand. “Unless you guys have signal?”

“I don’t,” said Jaune.

“Not even intra-city,” Cardin grumbled.

“This doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t even be possible to find a dead zone this close to the capital,” Pyrrha fretted. “We’re practically within walking distance of Vale’s CCT tower. We should have to be underground before we could lose signal.”

Ruby groaned. “I know.” She stopped, pressing the heel of her hand to her forehead and closing her eyes. “But that’s the pattern. The mist, the boar, the no-signal thing. It’s all weird, mystical _Rose Quartz_ stuff and I’m sorry. I should have known better than to let you guys get anywhere near any of it.”

Jaune frowned. “Ruby—”

“What do you mean, _Rose Quartz stuff?”_ Cardin echoed, staring at her. “Is that—that thing you did earlier, when you moved so fast. Was that a Gem power?”

“Yeah,” she admitted, staring at the ground.

“But you’re just a kid. You’re all normal colours. How do you have Gem powers?”

“Cardin, let it go,” Pyrrha began warningly.

“No way! You guys have the _genius_ idea to trek out to the most dangerous place in the valley—”

“Which you were totally okay with when you thought you were gonna get to beat up monsters,” Jaune pointed out testily.

“—yeah, well, I know what to _do_ with monsters, Arc!” Cardin shot back. “But _this_ crap? I signed up for _none_ of this! I came along for the same reason as you guys, ’cause I wanted to skate through easy on this project! And now I find out we’re not just going into the Gem forest, oh no, we’re dealing with Gem _bullshit,_ too. Which both of _you_ already knew!”

“Seriously?” Jaune demanded. “The only reason we got desperate for an easy grade is because we knew _you_ weren’t interested in putting the work in!”

“Because this stuff isn’t important! I’m going to be a Huntsman! Why the hell should I be wasting my time in Biology class? Gem monsters aren’t even biological!”

“Because you’re part of a team right now!” Jaune clenched his fists. “Isn’t part of being a Huntsman not screwing over your teammates?”

“And what would _you_ know about being a Huntsman?” Cardin sneered. “You can barely run laps in P.E. Where do you work again? A coffee shop? I bet you’ve never even held a weapon!”

“That is _not unusual_ for a _fifteen-year-old!”_ Jaune snapped, his voice sliding into a higher register.

 _“That’s not unusual for a fifteen-year-old!”_ Cardin mocked him in falsetto. “Voice still cracking, Jaune-y boy? Or is that just what you sound like when you’re not pretending to be a real man?”

“Stop,” Pyrrha said firmly, stepping between them and holding out her hands. “This is ridiculous. We are lost in unfamiliar and dangerous territory. The only way we’re getting out is by working together.”

“The only way we’re getting out,” Cardin spat, “is if _she_ does whatever little song and dance lifts the mist!” He pointed at Ruby, who took a step back. “You people turned this place into a death trap. You’ve kept Remnans from even setting _foot_ in here without permission. Obviously, this is some kind of Gem security measure. So you lift it and let us out right now!”

“I’m stuck in here too!” Ruby protested. “Listen, I never thought I was putting you guys in danger. If I didn’t think it’d be safe, I’d’ve said no when Pyrrha and Jaune asked to come here!”

“So you have no idea what’s going on? Just _great.”_

“I’m sure if we all think about it we’ll find a way to fix this,” Ruby said, a pleading note to her words.

“You can fix it any time you want!” Cardin insisted. “Rubies have fire powers, right? Just burn the mist away and we can walk right out!”

“I’m not a Ruby. I’m not a Gem!”

“You’re named Ruby and you can use Gem powers! If you’re not a Gem, then what the hell are you?”

 _“I don’t know!”_ Ruby screamed. “I’m half! I’m half-human and half-Gem and I’m not old enough or strong enough or smart enough to fix _anything,_ so _stop asking!”_

Silence, except for Ruby’s ragged breathing.

“I thought I could help,” she said in a hoarse, tiny voice. “You had a problem and it was so _simple_ and you even knew what I could do to help and all I had to do was _do_ it. I thought at least _this_ was my speed! Helping my friends with their science homework? Going on a nature walk!? _How could that go wrong!?”_

“Ruby, this isn’t your fault,” Pyrrha said gently. Ruby shook her head.

“Doesn’t matter. I’m still supposed to fix it, right?”

 _“We’re_ going to fix this,” Jaune said. _“All_ of us. Isn’t that right, Cardin?”

He and Pyrrha both turned stern glares on the other boy.

Cardin still looked taken aback by Ruby’s outburst, and maybe that was why he said nothing at first, just looking between the two of them like they were speaking in tongues. He swallowed.

“Yeah. We’ll—we’ll figure it out.” Then his eyes widened. “Duck!”

Startled, Ruby and Jaune obeyed without question, Pyrrha springing back and grabbing a stick. Ruby felt— _something_ pass over her head, whisper-quiet, and she saw a faint flash of colour that didn’t belong among white mist and red trees.

They stumbled forward and Cardin pushed past them, brandishing his mace. Ruby just had time to see an indistinct humanoid figure hauling back for another swing with an axe before Cardin’s mace banished it in a swirl of mist. The axe dropped to the ground, wisps of vapour pouring off of it, revealing it to be quite battered and damaged from either overuse and disuse. Or, given the forest’s history, more likely both.

“Uh, Ruby?” Jaune’s voice was curiously flat. “Is your forest haunted?”

“Nnnnnooooo?”

“Seems it is,” Pyrrha said briskly, flinging her stick like a javelin through another of the—well, the ghosts. Pale wraiths with washed-out colours too varied to belong to humans or Faunus, all armoured, bearing a truly ludicrous assortment of weapons, appearing from the mists in groups of two or three, advancing slowly on their little band. And at the head of the encroaching army was the very spectre Cardin had struck, reaching back blindly to accept its retrieved axe from one of its comrades.

“So, good news, they go down easy. Bad news, they don’t stay down,” Cardin reported, sounding oddly calm. He and Pyrrha backed away from the line of wraiths. Pyrrha had found another weapon, a larger branch this time, and was holding it like a staff in front of her.

To hell with the gauntlets; Ruby’s reason for having them out was pretty thoroughly shot. She held out her hands and willed her scythe into being, the gauntlets dissolving into light and re-forming as the haft in her grip.

“Okay,” Jaune said. “That’s really cool.”

She surprised herself by smiling at that, swinging her weapon and dissipating a small cluster of approaching ghosts.

“Jaune!” Pyrrha called. “Stay in the middle of us. We’ll keep you safe!”

Cardin snorted. “Better idea.” He struck out at another ghost, reaching out with his free hand and grabbing its weapon as it fell: a sword, pitted and rusty, but whole. “Come on, Arc, you can do at least as good with this as your girlfriend can with some stick off the ground, right? You only gotta hit ’em once!”

“She’s, uh, she’s not—!”

“Jaune, just take the sword!” Pyrrha ordered.

“Okay!”

Ruby saw him falter as he took the hilt in hand, but he recovered quickly, looking at the blade in surprise. “Huh. It’s pretty light—”

“Jaune, behind you!” Ruby exclaimed.

“Gah!” He jumped, turning and slashing wildly. It did the trick; the wraiths which had been closing in on him faded away.

The four of them pulled together, back-to-back, weapons ready.

“We need a plan!” Pyrrha said urgently.

“Cut through them, keep going. What else is there?” Cardin pointed out.

Jaune winced and flinched back as he flailed out with his sword again, narrowly managing to stab a ghost before it could bring down its weapon on his head. “I really hate to agree, but…wait a sec, this guy just tried to brain me with a _ladle!”_

A very large and elaborate-looking ladle, but sure enough, there it was on the ground in front of him.

“Oh!” Pyrrha sounded almost cheerful. “That tops my strangest. A crowbar! Two crowbars, actually, which was really the strange part!”

“Okay, Plan: Cut and Run wins!” Ruby voted. “Cardin, switch with me! Pyrrha and I have the longest reach; we’ll be able to cut a path!”

“You better watch where you’re swinging that thing, Arc,” Cardin said darkly as he and Ruby slipped by each other.

“You’re the one who gave the amateur a sword!” Jaune retorted.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did you _want_ to cower in the middle?”

Despite their sniping at one another, the boys were still managing to keep the ghosts at their back at bay and keep them from flanking Pyrrha and Ruby, so Ruby ignored them, swinging her scythe in exactly the way the farmers who’d invented the tool had intended, cutting away swathes of the phantom army with each swing.

Pyrrha wasn’t as well armed, but like Jaune, she was holding her own with relative ease. “It’s a good thing they’re slow!”

“No kidding!” Slow _and_ apparently mindless; if these really _were_ ghosts, they were the ghosts of very real Gem soldiers, and the four of them should have been not only outnumbered, but outclassed. But though they swung their blades with expert motions, fired guns and bows with perfect stances, it was like they were directing their attacks to the wrong targets—a wraith wielding a mace much like Cardin’s seemed to think Ruby was a foot taller and slightly to the left of where she actually was, allowing Ruby to duck its attack with ease before counterstriking.

_Can they even see us? Or do they see something else?_

“I think we’ll be okay once we break through their lines!” Ruby yelled. “Hang in there!”

It wasn’t much of a battle, if she was being perfectly honest. Even their token efforts were enough to hold off the attack, and once they got a rhythm going they were able to move through the spectral army at a good clip, though Ruby started pulling back her grip on the scythe handle after the first few times the tip of the blade caught in the surprisingly-tough bark of a bloodwood tree. It was a good thing Forever Fall wasn’t an especially dense forest, and that the bloodwoods’ roots ran deep.

That did make it something of a surprise when Ruby caught herself stumbling, despite the treads on her combat boots and her deliberately flat-footed gait.

“There’s an incline!” Pyrrha reported a moment later. “Everyone be careful!”

_But we’re down on the low side of the valley. Unless we’ve pushed towards the coast…?_

It didn’t matter, not if it didn’t have anything to do with them staying alive. Ruby picked her footing as carefully as she could, doing her best to keep an eye on the others as well. Jaune nearly slipped at one point, only catching himself because Ruby jabbed her scythe handle back towards him, giving him something to grab hold of. Besides Cardin, who steadied him wordlessly only to withdraw his hand with a sharp recoil that spoke of disdain.

“Keep it together, Arc!”

“Sorry! Thanks!”

“Is it just me,” Pyrrha panted, “or is the mist thinning?”

The mist and the army both; Ruby perked up as she noticed. “The ghosts must be tied to the mist! I bet we’re climbing above it now!”

“Thank the gods,” Jaune nearly whimpered.

“Oh, please,” Cardin muttered.

At last they emerged from the last wisps of mist into clear air, and the remaining wraiths behind them vanished in the haze. Pyrrha planted the end of her staff in the ground and let it take some of her weight, her breath even but shallow. Jaune immediately dropped to the crimson grass, flopping on his back, sword still gripped loosely in his hand. To Ruby’s surprise, Cardin plopped down on the ground too, cross-legged and bent over, breathing harder than she’d noticed before.

“What the _hell,”_ he growled, dropping his mace and rubbing at his eyes.

Ruby twirled her scythe so the blade curved backwards, almost brushing the ground as she held the handle behind her, and looked around. They stood near the crest of a low, gentle hill. It was twilight, a band of light hugging the horizon while the sky above shaded to a deep indigo. Mist still clung to the treetops below, extending to the limits of her vision. She couldn’t see the city past it, and the encroaching darkness hid even the mountains from view. They were out of the mist, alright, but…

“Anyone have any idea where we are?” she asked without much hope.

“A hill in the middle of the world’s worst forest,” Cardin replied, deadpan.

Pyrrha shook her head. “No, sorry.”

 _“Alive,”_ Jaune said with feeling.

“Do we risk heading back into the woods?” Pyrrha asked, looking over at Ruby. “I’m not sure we should. Visibility is poor even up here. As much as I hate to suggest it, we might be better off waiting until morning.”

“Morning?” Jaune sat up, alarmed. “You want to sleep out here?”

“No, of course not, but I’m not sure there’s a good alternative. I packed water and trail mix in my bag. Did anyone else bring anything?”

“Water and…fruit gummies,” Ruby admitted, mumbling the last words. “They’re a good pick-me-up!”

“More water and granola bars,” was Cardin’s contribution.

“I brought water too,” Jaune said rather defensively. “And, uh, some cereal. Dry cereal. In a bag. …Marshmallows. I brought cereal marshmallows.”

Cardin stared at him. “You are a one-man disaster zone, Arc.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Well…” Ruby took a deep breath. “We can probably gather up some stuff to make a fire without going back in the mist. Everything down there’s too wet to burn anyway.

“I’ve got a fire-starter in my backpack,” Jaune offered. “Plus a knife and a flashlight…what? The Arcs are a camping family. I came prepared.”

“With marshmallows,” Pyrrha said, her mouth twitching with a suppressed smile.

 _“Cereal_ marshmallows. They’re a valid breakfast food!”

“I can’t believe I’m going to die with you people,” Cardin said calmly.

“Well, maybe Yang or Qrow’ll come looking for me when I don’t come home and see a fire in Forever Fall and think ‘hey, that shouldn’t be there’ and come save us,” Ruby said, feeling optimistic as the thought occurred to her.

Pyrrha seemed cheered as well. “There is that.”

“You know what? It’ll be _highly_ embarrassing, but I’ll take the rescue,” Jaune decided, pushing himself off the ground.

Cardin grunted. “Whatever it takes to get out of here.”

* * *

Between the four of them, they managed to get a decent fire going by the time it was fully dark. Pyrrha shared around handfuls of trail mix and Cardin broke a pair of granola bars in half.

“I just threw the rest of the box in there,” he explained, passing the food out. “There were only four left. We’ll save the rest for breakfast.”

“Which we won’t need because a Gem is going to swoop out of the sky and save us any minute now,” Jaune declared. He looked up at the sky expectantly. “…Aaaaaaany minute now.”

“I can’t believe we don’t have signal up here, either,” Pyrrha said, fishing a few more peanuts out of the bag of trail mix. “I know we’re not all that high up, but we’ve breached the canopy at least. If there were more light and less mist, we’d be able to see Beacon Tower from here. None of this makes any sense.”

“Gem stuff,” Ruby concluded glumly. “I bet all Weiss’s money that mist isn’t natural.”

“Why always Weiss’s money?” Jaune asked. “You live with _three immortals._ Aren’t you loaded?”

“Compared to the Schnees?”

“Well, no, but still.”

“Alright. I bet all of Yang’s and also Ozpin’s money that mist isn’t natural.”

“Not Qrow’s?”

“The way Qrow _doesn’t_ spend money, he’s gotta be the richest of the three or else he’s broke.” Ruby held up her hands. “Either way, I’m steering clear.”

“Hey, Jaune, can I borrow your knife?” Pyrrha asked, screwing the cap back onto her water bottle. “I want to try something.”

“Yeah, sure thing.” It only took a moment or two of rooting around in his bag before Jaune produced a folded pocketknife, leaning and stretching to pass it over.

“Thanks.” Pyrrha picked up the branch she’d used to fight in the forest and set it across her legs, flicking open the knife and starting to whittle at end of the bough. “In case we run into something a little more solid tomorrow,” she explained. “A monster, or even something like that boar, though I’d prefer not to hurt any animals.”

“Better it than you,” Cardin pointed out.

“Well, yes.” Pyrrha frowned. “But I’d still rather avoid it if possible.”

“Yeah, well, just goes to show fighting’s not for everyone.” Cardin shrugged, bracing his hand against the ground and leaning back from the fire. “Takes a certain mindset.”

“The one where you think you’re better than everyone else?” Jaune asked dryly.

“I don’t think I’m better than everyone else,” Cardin replied easily. “I just know I’m better than you. And her.”

“Not me?” Ruby said with a bit of surprise.

“The half-Gem child soldier?” Cardin snorted. “Define ‘better’.”

“I…” _Child soldier?_

“We’re literally not in the same league,” Cardin went on, as if she hadn’t even tried to speak. “Your whole thing? Totally different from mine. Sure, you could probably take me in a fight, but by the time you’re grown up, _I’ll_ be a successful Huntsman and _you’ll_ be trying to duck out of therapy, so hey. Humanity one, Gemkind zero.”

_Child…soldier._

“What the hell, Cardin?” Jaune stared at him incredulously. “Who says something like that?”

“Come on, you heard her little freakout earlier. She’s not even old enough to get a job yet and she’s already halfway to breaking down or burning out. It’s the prodigy problem, right, Nikos?” he added unexpectedly, raising his water bottle in a mock-toast.

Pyrrha’s knife slipped, narrowly missing her leg.

“And that’s without factoring in the fighting. Whole family full of Huntsmen, you really think I don’t know what that line of work can do to you?”

Ruby crossed her arms, swallowing hard. “My dad’s a Huntsman, and he turned out just fine.”

“Yeah? How old was _he_ when he started?”

“That’s enough,” Pyrrha said sharply. “I don’t think you’re really qualified to be psychoanalysing anyone, Cardin, much less someone you just met. Or should I be calling you Dr. Winchester?”

“I don’t think you need to be getting catty, Nikos,” Cardin mocked her. “Or are you hiding a tail under that skirt? I’m honestly more impressed than anything if you are, I mean, look at it.”

“Don’t talk about Pyrrha’s skirt,” Jaune said curtly.

“Sheesh, jealous much?” Cardin laughed. “Good thing she’s wearing boots, I wouldn’t want you to catch me ogling her ankles!”

“It’s late,” Ruby said abruptly, standing up. “We should get some rest. I’ll take first watch.”

* * *

Dawn came during Jaune’s watch, and Ruby woke up to find him staring at the ground in satisfaction.

“Who needs a compass?” he asked when he caught her looking, gesturing her over. He’d planted a stick in the ground. It took Ruby’s half-awake brain a moment to figure out why that was significant.

“Now we’ll know which way we’re headed!”

 _“And_ which way we _want_ to head.” Jaune pointed…north, Ruby estimated, and followed the gesture with her eyes.

In daylight, it was clear their little hill simply wasn’t tall enough to let them see past the limits of the forest, still covered in that thick, unnatural mist. But one feature was just barely visible in the distance.

“The ocean! We can follow the shore back to the city!” Then she frowned. “So why’d you bother with the stick?”

“Couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was so sure we were moving south last night.” Jaune frowned too, concerned. “I mean, obviously we couldn’t have been moving _due_ south or we would have run out of forest, but I don’t remember turning completely around, do you?”

“I guess we must have just made a really wide turn…?”

He shook his head. “Guess so.”

“Well, let’s wake up the others.” Ruby set her jaw, determined. “No time to waste. Let’s get out of here.”

“Uh, Ruby?”

She turned around again to look at him. Jaune fidgeted a little, clearing his throat.

“Why…why do you think no one came looking for us last night? I even told my family where I’d be, so someone definitely should have checked this place out, right?”

“Just bad timing?” Ruby offered helplessly. “Ships in the night? They just didn’t notice us, and we just didn’t notice them,” she explained when Jaune looked puzzled. “Like ships with their lights off in the dark. Even if you’re looking for each other, you can still miss each other just by looking the wrong way at the wrong time.”

Jaune nodded, still seeming troubled. “Yeah. There’s not really anything else that makes sense.”

“Jaune, what about _any_ of this has made sense so far?”

* * *

“Forest death-march log, day 2,” Cardin said aloud. “Fearless leader has decided we’re going to the beach. We’ll check back in once she actually finds it.”

“We’ve been walking in a straight line this whole time,” Ruby snapped at him. “Directly towards the beach. We’ll get there. The mist isn’t as thick now, anyways, and the light’s better.”

“Ah, yes. The _mist._ Our old friend.”

Suddenly, Jaune pointed. “Pink squirrel!”

Ruby whipped her head around to look. “Where?”

“Aww!” Pyrrha smiled, holding her improvised spear to her chest.

“So not just the plant life, but the animals turned Rose Quartz colours too?” Jaune asked.

“I know my mom’s tears are supposed to have changed the trees and everything. Maybe the wildlife had some kind of mutation after living here for so many generations?”

“Your mom’s _tears,”_ Cardin echoed flatly.

“Yup,” Ruby said, staring him down. “Mom’s tears. They had healing properties. That’s why there’s a forest even after the big battle that happened here.”

“Hmm.” Pyrrha looked thoughtful. “I wonder if that’s part of why no one’s allowed to just walk in here. It’s not just about controlling the resources, but stopping trespassers, since it’s such a significant site for Gems. Almost like holy ground, in a way.”

“‘Holy’.” Ruby tested the word out. “Sounds…kinda weird. I mean, a lot of terrible things happened here but it healed anyway and there’s a message there, I get it. But it’s _my mom_ that healed it. I know she was their leader, but they didn’t _worship_ her.”

“Not every religion needs a god,” Pyrrha pointed out. “Not every faith needs a religion, for that matter. Spirituality is fluid. Maybe it doesn’t matter _who_ healed the forest; just that the forest exists, when no one thought it could.”

“Wow. Sounds like you were studying for a philosophy degree while I was getting certified as a head shrinker,” Cardin droned. “Look how smart we all are.”

Pyrrha reddened, but Jaune nudged her with his elbow, smiling. “Glad one of us is a deep thinker.”

The blush didn’t go away, but she was smiling too, now. “Some people tune out when they work out. I’m always ‘in the zone’ when I compete, but when I’m just training, I…don’t know.” She tilted her head back, looking up at the hazy sky. “It’s like…all the noise goes away, and I can think more clearly than ever. I can’t afford to split my focus like that when there’s something on the line, but when it’s just me and a stretch of pavement or a set of forms, my mind runs free. That probably sounds strange.”

“Don’t,” Ruby hissed softly as Cardin opened his mouth.

“A little,” Jaune admitted. “But the inside of my head kind of sounds like how that squirrel does when it finds a nut, only pretty much all the time, so I don’t think I’m a good judge of what’s strange.”

“Adorable.” Cardin sighed, rolling his eyes. “Where’s a monster attack when you need one?”

“Why would you even _say_ that?” Ruby complained.

“Lighten up. It’s not like just saying that is gonna call something down on us.”

A muffled roar echoed through the woods. The squirrel fled through the treetops, chittering in alarm.

Jaune groaned. “You just had to, didn’t you?”

A dark shape hurtled out of the mist, barrelling towards them. Ruby held out her hand and called up a shield-bubble just in time to block it.

“Agh!”

The creature bounced off, but the whole shield shuddered wildly and then collapsed as Ruby cried out in pain. It had been shoddy work, but she hadn’t had time to focus on it—and she wouldn’t have time to try again, either.

The monster—and Ruby could see the Gemstone atop its head now, a tawny banded Agate—reared up on its hind legs, roaring.

_Another bear._

But to call this thing a bear—well, it was kind of like calling a kraken a squid. Not exactly _wrong,_ but definitely _off._ It was bigger, much bigger, than the monster Yang had fought off for Scapolite in the Emerald Forest, and its teeth weren’t so much teeth as an interlocking set of stalactites and stalagmites set into a massive, powerful jaw. Similar spines ran down its back and jutted from the joints of its too-long limbs.

The corrupted Agate lunged again, forcing Ruby and the others to scatter as she summoned her scythe.

“What do we do!?” Jaune cried.

“Go for the limbs!” Cardin yelled back. “And if you get a chance, Arc, you cut off the damn thing’s head!”

“I really don’t think this sword is sharp enough for that!”

Once again, the bear bellowed—this time in pain, Ruby realised, spotting Pyrrha’s spear lodged in one of its back paws.

 _Did she_ throw _that? What an arm…and her_ aim!

“Aaaand now she has no weapon.” Cardin shook his head in irritation. _“Amateurs.”_

Well. Yeah, there was that. Something Pyrrha clearly realised as well, based on the uncharacteristic swearing Ruby could hear coming from her direction.

“Keep back now, Pyrrha!” Ruby called. “We’ve got this! Stay safe!” She swung her scythe, trying to hook one of the bear-monster’s legs out from under it. It lifted its paw in time to avoid her blade, but shifting its weight so abruptly set it wobbling, an outraged grumble rumbling from its throat. The paw Pyrrha had injured started to slip.

Cardin took the opening immediately, hammering at the other leg on their side with his mace. The grumble built to another roar as the monster heaved its weight back towards them, swiping heavily with its front paw. Cardin barely got out of the way in time.

He wasn’t as quick-footed as Weiss or as well-practiced as Taiyang, the latter of whom was nearly on par with a Gem Huntsman in terms of ability. His limited training and young age oddly made him the closest thing Ruby had to a peer, and before now she hadn’t realised just how much of an edge her Gem powers gave her. Cardin had no way to shield himself. He couldn’t shift his shape or control the elements or alter his passage through space and time. He didn’t even have the innate strength, speed, and stamina that Ruby took for granted thanks to her Gem heritage. Weiss had compensated with fancy footwork, a legendary weapon, and a bottomless supply of Dust, but Cardin—Cardin had a mace.

 _‘We’re literally not in the same league’,_ he’d said. She got it now.

“Jaune, you and Cardin keep working on the legs! I’ll go for the head!”

She broke down into petals, shooting up in the air as she swapped scythe for rifle and took aim. Carefully, carefully; it would’t do to damage the Gemstone, especially when they were trapped in the woods.

 _Oh gods, what if one of us gets injured?_ It wasn’t something Ruby was used to thinking about; normally she was the most vulnerable person in the group. _We can’t get to a hospital! Maybe Jaune has a first-aid kit!?_

Her hands shook, her finger slipped, and her shot went wide, hitting the ground with a spray of dirt and torn grass.

“Shoot!”

The bear monster saw her and reared up again, ready to knock her out of the sky. She sucked in a breath and called on her petals again, racking her brain for a Plan B—

Jaune darted in, yelling incoherently, holding his sword like a baseball bat. He swung hard at the monster’s exposed belly. The blade found purchase, biting in, and Jaune kept moving, pulling, _wrenching_ —the monster howled, the least ursine sound to come out of it so far, and the last. Its form crumpled, dark motes bleeding from it, and at last it crumbled away into nothing, its Gemstone falling at Jaune’s feet.

Ruby landed with a _thump_ next to him, staring at it.

“Rushing in like that was stupid, wasn’t it?” Jaune asked abruptly.

“Yup.”

“Yeah, I had a feeling.”

“It worked, though.” Ruby clapped him on the back, grinning. “Nice going, Huntsman Arc.”

“Ha! Jaune Arc, dashing heroic Huntsman.” Jaune nodded thoughtfully, smiling. “I could get used to that.”

“Jaune!” Pyrrha had once again taken to the trees when she was forced to retreat, and as she swung down she hit the ground running, heading straight for them. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, actually.” Jaune looked himself over in some surprise. “It was so focused on Ruby and Cardin it didn’t even notice me until it was too late. _Oof!”_

Pyrrha practically tackled him, hugging him tight for just a moment before pushing him gently away again. “Sometimes it’s better not to be noticed.” She smiled shyly. “Although that _was_ pretty impressive.”

“Why thank you, my lady,” Jaune said grandly, bending in a sort of half-bow. She giggled.

“Seriously, what is with this forest throwing problem after problem at us?” Cardin demanded, throwing his mace down on the ground. “First that boar comes out of nowhere, then some kind of freaky ghost army, and now this monster shows up right after I crack a joke about it? And I am _so! damn! tired_ of this stupid _mist!_ We’re completely turned around again! How are we supposed to get out of here before the next dose of life-threatening whatever-the-hell hits?”

“Someone told me once that things are _drawn_ to Forever Fall, somehow,” Ruby said, bending down and picking up the corrupted Agate Gemstone. “Maybe they’re drawn to us now that we’re here. Because we’re from outside the forest. Trespassing, like Pyrrha said.”

“But we _aren’t_ trespassing.” Pyrrha frowned. “We’re here with your permission. You even came with us. Didn’t you say you’d been here before, and nothing came after you?”

“Yeah…” Ruby blinked. _“No,_ ” she realised. “Nothing _bad_ came after me. But Zwei did.”

“Okay, again, who or what is Zwei?” Cardin asked.

She squirmed. “My dog.”

Cardin threw his hands up in the air. “I give up.”

“Things get drawn here. Some good, some bad, all dangerous, at least to organics,” Ruby quoted to herself. _If Zwei had opened that portal to Mom’s vault and Weiss was the only one around to fall in, would she have been able to get out again? Or would she have been stuck there, because she’s human?_

“So maybe the mist is one of the…things drawn here,” Jaune said slowly. “Or something.”

“Or maybe the mist is why we only seem to be drawing bad things,” Pyrrha theorised.

Ruby shook her head in uncertainty, focusing on the Gemstone in her hands. _C’mon, bubble. Bubble the Gem. It’s not hard, you know how to make bubbles, you’ve seen Gems bubbled so many times before._

“Oh, _come_ _on!”_ Cardin groaned suddenly. He sounded so utterly _defeated_ that Ruby looked up—and immediately felt like echoing him. The wraiths from the night before were back, as numerous and implacable as ever.

“These guys _again?”_ Jaune adjusted his grip on his sword, backing towards Pyrrha, who reached past him and collected her spear off the ground.

“I suppose we’ll just have to use the same strategy,” she said, narrowing her eyes at the ghosts.

Ruby squeezed her eyes shut, frustration building in her chest. She could feel herself starting to tear up out of sheer aggravation, a droplet escaping from between her eyelids and rolling down her cheek and chin and…

She opened her eyes in time to see that single tear fall through the air only to be swallowed up by the mist, dispersed into vapour as if it had never been anything else.

And Ruby knew.

There were bloodwood trees at Beacon, standing in a ring around the statue of Summer—the empty fountain, long since run dry. All her stone protectors frozen in time, trapped in a war that had was already over. Bloodwood trees surrounded Ruby now, along with an army of long-gone Gems armed too eccentrically to possibly be Homeworld’s forces. They were not attacking, not truly, because they did not need their invaders dead. They just needed to keep them away from whatever it was they were protecting, be it Forever Fall itself or something within it.

But there was at least one other thing in Forever Fall Ruby knew these Gems would give anything to protect.

She banished her scythe and stood, tucking the corrupted Gemstone into her shorts pocket. Then she grabbed the hem of her hoodie and pulled it over her head.

“Ruby, what are you—?”

“Not now, Jaune!” Ruby pleaded from behind the folds of fabric, finally pulling her arms free of the sleeves and removing the hoodie entirely. “Just trust me!”

She shivered as the cool, damp air hit her bare arms, but that wasn’t important. What _was_ important was that as she stood there, hoodie clenched in one hand and Gemstone exposed, the ghostly army halted its advance.

“Okay,” said Cardin, lowering the mace he’d just retrieved. “You strip, they stop. Sure. Makes sense.”

“Cardin!” Pyrrha hissed. _“Not_ _now!”_

 _Okay, Ruby. This is either our best chance out of here, or it’s gonna make you look so stupid you can never show your face to Jaune and Pyrrha ever again._ “Gems of Free Remnant!” she called out. “Rose Rebellion, _stand down!”_ She held her breath, crossing the fingers of her free hand.

Then she let it all out in a long exhale as slowly the phantom Gems lowered their weapons in perfect, eerie sync, their tense stances relaxing.

“Holy crap, that actually worked,” Jaune whispered.

“Let us pass,” Ruby ordered. “Uh, please?”

Cardin was staring at her—she had a feeling Jaune and Pyrrha were, too, but she ignored them all, focusing on the wraiths as they parted ranks, making a path.

“Guess we’re going that way,” she said with a nervous laugh, one that died quickly in the silence of the forest. “Let’s go.

She heard the others fall into step behind her as she walked, Cardin stiff and still and staring in her peripheral vision for a long moment after. Then he, too, joined their uncertain procession, as they walked right towards the shades of the Rose Rebellion and passed by them close enough to touch, if any of them had dared. Their blank faces were turned in towards Ruby, as if they really were watching her.

_So creepy…!_

She did her best to keep her face impassive, though, and moved with as much authority as she could muster with so many eyes on her and the discomfort of a dormant Gemstone digging into her hip. It only barely fit into her pocket. She’d have to get it bubbled soon, or they’d be in for a rematch.

It felt like an eternity that they spent walking through the ghostly force, but in truth it took no longer than it might to cross the street. Soon enough they emerged into a clearing, and here alone the mist clung close to the ground, only a faint haze in the air as thick clouds of the stuff rolled outwards towards the trees. That was what allowed Ruby to see what awaited them, and her heart skipped a beat. She took an involuntary step back, nearly colliding with Jaune and Pyrrha.

“What is it?” Pyrrha asked, hushed. Jaune tilted his head, alarm and suspicion mingling on his face.

“Hang on…isn’t that…?”

“Oh my gods,” Ruby whispered. Her tears flowed free. And so, but for the fact that she was still standing, she became a perfect mirror for the figure at the heart of the clearing, one she had never seen in person but knew well from countless depictions.

Faint and indistinct, nearly devoid of colour, Summer Rose Quartz knelt on the forest floor and wept as if her heart were breaking.

“I—I can’t do this.” Ruby realised she was shaking. “Guys, I can’t—”

“Hey.” Jaune gently took the hoodie from her grip and wrapped his hand around hers. Pyrrha took up her other hand. “You’re not alone.”

“We’re with you,” said Pyrrha, squeezing gently. “Deep breaths.”

In and out. In and out. Gradually, Ruby calmed enough to summon the will to put one foot in front of the other, slowly making her way across the clearing, her heart pounding in her chest. And her throat. Her ears. Pretty much anywhere she could feel her own pulse, it was making itself known with a vengeance. The sensation was even more disorienting in the mist, and Ruby was grateful beyond words that Pyrrha and Jaune were there to ground her.

As they drew closer, Ruby realised that Summer wasn’t alone, either. Even fainter than the Rose Quartz’s own form were two more figures, armoured and cloaked, flanking her like silent sentinels. Unlike the other spectres, these held no weapons, which was only natural. Neither Qrow’s scythe nor Ozpin’s cane had fallen on this ancient battlefield.

“I guess that rules out the haunted-forest theory,” Jaune murmured.

At last they came to a halt in front of the trio of wraiths. The phantoms of Qrow and Ozpin had the same unnatural stillness as the others, but Summer’s body shook and heaved with every appearance of life. The appearance, but not the sound. The way she moved, the contortions of her face, indicated she was sobbing uncontrollably, but the clearing was silent.

Ruby swallowed. She slipped her hands out of her friends’ grasp and knelt down.

“Hey, Mom? Are you there?”

Summer didn’t seem to have even noticed her presence.

“Summer?” At that, the Qrow-wraith moved, pressing a hand against Summer’s right shoulder-blade. Summer jerked, looking up at him in surprise, tears still pouring down her face.

Ruby’s eyes flicked over to the faded image of Ozpin, and with a flash of clarity and a calm, soft tone she said, “Lady Rose.”

Gloved, ghostly fingers rested lightly atop Summer’s left shoulder. Summer turned her head to look up at Ozpin’s phantom instead, shaking her head as if denying something.

“Mom,” Ruby said again. This time, she got a response: Summer turned now to her, her sorrowful expression unchanged, her eyes blank with despair.

And with absence—for Summer’s spirit could not dwell here any more than Qrow’s or Ozpin’s. She was made up of the same stuff as all the other ghosts that haunted this place. She just happened to be the source of it, too.

“You’re all mist, aren’t you?” Ruby asked quietly. “Mist and memories. Like…like snapshots of time. Short clips playing over and over. Mom cried and cried while she thought of all the people she’d never see again, and those thoughts and feelings soaked into the ground and became part of the forest. I don’t know why—if it was because of us being here at all, or if it was the tension between us, or something to do with me specifically—but when we came, Forever Fall started remembering all Mom’s pain.”

Summer gazed at her sadly. Ruby had a feeling she wore the same expression. “You’re not my mom,” she said, feeling a stab of disappointment even though she’d _known,_ she’d always known Summer was gone. “But you’re part of her. This whole mist, and all the ghosts made from it—you’re all part of her. You’re her grief.”

She touched her Gemstone. “I’ve got part of her, too. Maybe I _am_ part of her, or she’s part of me, or—I don’t know. It’s not something I think about a lot. Honestly, I try not to. Guess I didn’t get Mom’s courage, huh?”

Slowly, Summer reached down in a mirror of Ruby’s gesture, armoured fingertips brushing the outline of her—their—Gemstone on her insubstantial body.

“It sounded kind of weird to me the first time I heard it. That Mom cried when the battle was over. I guess I was used to the way the people I knew handled bad feelings.” Ruby glanced up at Ozpin, but found her eyes drifting to Pyrrha as she spoke. “Locking them away, smiling and pretending everything’s fine…deflecting and distracting, or channeling them into anger.” Her gaze lingered on Qrow, yet flicked to Jaune as he shifted his weight as though uncomfortable. “But Mom didn’t do any of that, did she? She let them out. And eventually, she let them go.”

Ruby’s voice wavered as she added, “Now you’ve gotta let _us_ go, okay?”

Summer’s expression hardened.

“No, I’m not trying to run from you. But we can’t be trapped here forever. We have our whole lives waiting for us out there. Friends, families. We can’t stay with you. A-and I’ve got responsibilities, Mom’s responsibilities—here.” Ruby twisted her body awkwardly so she could reach her pocket, extricating the corrupted Agate stone. “See? This Gem, they need help. Only we don’t know how to help them, s-so I’ve gotta get them home to bubble them. So they can sleep until we find a way.”

She held out the Gemstone. “I’ve gotta take care of them. You get that, don’t you? Mom would get that. And even if you’re just a memory of her, I know you have to get it, too!”

Summer reached out her filmy hands, holding them over the Gemstone. Ruby swore she could feel the cold radiating from them. She moved them strangely, a sort of cupping motion, one hand beneath Ruby’s and the other drifting over the Agate’s surface. She looked up at Ruby pleadingly.

“What is she…?” Pyrrha’s voice was hushed.

“She’s trying to bubble it,” Ruby realised. “But she can’t.”

Ruby slid the Gemstone so it sat in the palm of only one hand, hesitantly moving her other until it overlapped with Summer’s, the mist breaking down and drifting aimlessly around Ruby’s shaking fingers. Her movement wasn’t as fluid as Summer’s had been, but rosy light shimmered between her palms, following the unsteady arc of her hand. The Agate floated in her grasp, wrapped in a twinkling sphere of warm energy.

“We did it,” Ruby told Summer. “They can rest now.” Her voice cracked. “You can rest now. I’ll take care of them. I promise.”

Tears still rolled down Summer’s face, but as Ruby watched, she smiled—tentative at first, then brilliant and beautiful. She seemed lit from within, colour and definition settling into her, and for a moment she looked so real Ruby was sure she could reach out and touch her. The mist around her blew away, taking the wraiths of Qrow and Ozpin with it. Ruby heard a rain of heavy impacts and clattering metal behind her—the weapons of the phantom army falling to the ground, punctuated by Cardin’s quiet swearing. It must have been startling, but Ruby was still staring into her mother’s eyes, even as she, too, began to break apart. Not into mist, but petals, which swirled gently around Ruby, the wind that carried them plucking anxiously at her.

Ruby stood. The petals stayed with her at first, then spiralled towards the treeline. Without a word, the four of them followed.

The light in the forest changed quickly, too quickly, as they drifted in the petals’ wake. Ruby had the feeling that if she looked up, she could track the movement of the sun moment to moment, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off the petals as they wound around tree-trunks and rustled the crimson foliage. It couldn’t have been much past noon by the time they entered the clearing, but when at last Ruby stepped between two trees and found herself on the rocky shore of the bight she could see the sun setting behind the distant, elaborate rooftops of the Aristocratic District. The petals swirled lazily one last time before dissipating into mist tinged gold by the sunset. A breeze blew over the waves, and the last traces of mist dispersed.

It was Cardin who finally broke into their shared reverie, shaking himself and pulling out his scroll. “I’ve got signal again.”

“So we’re really out!” Jaune sighed in relief. Ruby pulled out her own scroll, remembering all too well what had happened the last time she’d inadvertently left the Gems unanswered. But to her surprise, there were no texts waiting for her. No missed calls, either. And—

“It’s yesterday,” she said blankly, staring at the date and time like it would somehow make sense if she just looked long enough. “I mean, it’s today? Today is yesterday?”

“It’s still the day we went into the forest.” Pyrrha frowned. “But I _saw_ the date change, my scroll was still keeping track of time even though it didn’t have a network to check it against. It changed back?”

“The headlines are all still the same,” Cardin confirmed, flipping through a news app. “Weather forecast hasn’t updated. All the newest posts I can see on social media list the same date my scroll’s giving me.”

“So we were only in there for—an _hour?”_ Jaune’s voice went high with incredulity, and for once Cardin didn’t even bother to make fun of him.

“But we _slept,”_ Pyrrha protested.

“I know, I had last watch, I saw the sun rise!”

They all turned to look at Ruby, who spread her arms wide. “Has this whole… _fiasco_ not made it clear I know nothing about anything? Forever Fall is weird, mist is bad, I’m having a hard time believing colours other than red actually exist, but apparently we weren’t gone long enough to worry anyone or get in trouble, so you know what? I’m gonna take that win.”

“Yeah,” Jaune decided. “Yeah, okay.”

“Fair enough.”

“Sounds good.”

“So are you gonna keep that, or…?” Ruby nodded to the rusty sword in Jaune’s hand. He looked down at it like he was surprised to see it.

“Oh! No. I mean, it’s not mine, and I don’t want any mist-ghosts coming after me.”

“I guess I should leave this too,” said Pyrrha, hefting her makeshift spear. “I think it’s technically illegal for me to have carried it out.”

They tentatively turned back to the treeline, exchanging nervous glances. Ruby left them to it, picking her way down the rocks towards the pebbled beach. Cardin followed a short distance behind her.

“It doesn’t look like too far of a hike,” she said. “At least there’s more rock than sand to walk on.”

One of the pebbles caught her eye, glinting differently than its fellows, and she bent down to pick it up. It wasn’t worn smooth like the others, rough-edged and oddly splintered in appearance. A deep blue or maybe purple in colour, but when she turned it just right it was shot through with thin bands of yellow.

Her stomach dropped.

_Scapolite._

* * *

Ruby had been strangely subdued on their walk back to civilisation, but then again, Pyrrha reflected, the rest of them weren’t exactly upbeat or chatty. It had been a long…hour, apparently, and they were all tired. ‘Tired’ was a bit of an understatement, really. Pyrrha hadn’t felt this exhausted in years.

When they crossed back into the city, Ruby said her goodbyes and went off to the north, out of place in her worn clothes among the formidable façades of the homes of the wealthy. Headed to Weiss’s house, presumably. Pyrrha wasn’t sure what the evening airbus and ferry schedules looked like, but sunset had turned to dusk some time ago and true night was closing in.

“Do you think we’ll be able to catch a bus, or should we just call a taxi?” Jaune wondered.

“We can make the bus, I think,” Pyrrha said, checking the time. “If we hurry.”

Cardin made a tired huff of a sound, not exactly a scoff but definitely not a laugh, either. “Not mine. Looks like I’m going on foot.”

“…Taxi?” Jaune suggested again. Cardin waved him off.

“Did you forget we weren’t friends, Arc? You’re a human dumpster fire, and you think _I’m_ the dumpster fire, and that’s just not a good foundation for a relationship.” Cardin gave him a tight, sarcastic smile and walked off without another word, his brisk pace carrying him swiftly away from the pair of them. Pyrrha bit her lip as she watched him go, wrestling with herself.

“I think Ruby hit the nail on the head,” Jaune sighed. “He is a _piece of work.”_

“Yeah…Jaune, go ahead and start walking to the bus stop. I’ll meet you there,” Pyrrha said. She didn’t wait for his reply, taking off after Cardin. “Hey! Wait up!”

He didn’t. But he did slow down a little—more out of surprise than anything, if Pyrrha had to guess. When she drew level with him, his brow furrowed as he looked at her.

“What?” he asked gruffly, finally coming to a stop. Pyrrha took a deep breath, bracing herself.

“I don’t like you,” she said without preamble. “That’s not something I say to a lot of people, or even _think_ about them, but I don’t. I don’t think I ever will.”

“Gee, thanks. I love you too.”

“You’re callous, selfish, boorish, bigoted…”

Cardin rolled his eyes. “You got a specific building you want me to jump off of, or can I take my pick?”

 _“But,”_ Pyrrha stressed. “If you need somewhere to be something other than a Winchester Huntsman-in-training for a little while, come by the Bakehouse. No explanations needed. No conversations expected. Though if you can be civil about it, and you need it…we can talk. One prodigy to another.”

Cardin stared at her for a moment, his expression almost…scared. And maybe, Pyrrha dared to think, a little hopeful, too.

Then he scoffed.

“Now who’s playing armchair psychologist? See you at school, Nikos.”

He turned away and raised a hand in a curt wave, walking off and vanishing into the city.

Despite Pyrrha’s words, Jaune remained standing where she’d left him. “What was that all about?” he asked.

She shook her head, a little mystified herself. At length, she said, “It’s hard to reach out when you don’t expect anyone to reach back.”

“Well…at least you tried, I guess. But it’s Cardin, you had to know _he_ wouldn’t reach back.”

“Yes. You’re right.” _But I’m not the one who needs to reach out._

“You’re too nice for your own good, Pyrrha.” Jaune smiled. “It’s good for the rest of us, though.”

She laughed, ducking her head. “Come on, we should get moving. Your parents must be worried sick.”

Once again, Pyrrha found herself conflicted as they walked towards the bus stop, glancing down repeatedly at Jaune’s hand swinging gently at his side.

 _Well…maybe I_ do _need to reach out a little._

Jaune startled slightly, a faint blush dusting his cheeks as Pyrrha slipped her hand into his, and she almost drew away. But before she could, he tentatively laced his fingers with hers. Neither of them dared look at each other, but as they came to a stop beside a city transit sign and waited, their hands were still loosely clasped together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are again at the end notes. This has been Forever Fall with a small side of Island Adventure. As noted back in chapter 4, this fic's version of Jaune exists in kind of a weird limbo of character development that I really wasn't expecting—my outline anticipated he would be his V1 self, but that's only sorta the case, and while I really like how he's turned out it completely shifted the trajectory of his, er, arc. Consequently, despite being based on Jaune-centric and Lars-and-Sadie-centric episodes, this chapter ended up being more about Ruby than anyone else, but you know what it turned out she had some stuff to process. And so did Cardin, apparently? I can't tell if he's better or worse than he was in canon. Maybe both. Yeah. I think I made him worse-better.
> 
> Anyway, I'm gonna—I'm gonna go lie down now. Maybe cry a little. Binge some anime until I'm done feeling sorry for myself. As of this chapter I am more than 300 pages into this thing (322 to be specific) and despite my complaints I actually am still enjoying myself, just also I'm completely shot right now. Someone should really take Ironwood's gun away, this is getting out of hand.  
> See you next time!  
> —oh, and uh, comments, kudos, you know. Or not. I'm not the boss of you. Thanks for reading!


	14. That Which We Call...?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weiss teaches Ruby how to dance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, everyone’s about to have a whole lot of feelings about this. I hope. And further hope they’re good ones! Let’s get to it.

_Can I come over?_ Ruby’s text had read. Properly capitalised and punctuated, as Weiss preferred, which was absolutely a red flag in hindsight. _I can’t go home this late._

Which made no sense—the airbus didn’t run at night, but the ferry did, just fewer trips. Still, Ruby turned up on Weiss’s doorstep over an hour later looking downright _haggard,_ her clothes scuffed and dirty, her hair a complete mess, shaking and with tears welling in her eyes. Weiss wasn’t sure if she was glad she’d decided to answer the door herself or if she was regretting not letting Klein deal with…whatever this was.

“Are you okay?” she started to ask, only to stumble and nearly fall right on her butt as Ruby threw herself at her. “You smell like leaf mould,” Weiss choked out, catching herself blindly on a pillar.

“I slept in the woods.”

It took a moment to interpret Ruby’s strained and muffled words. Then a moment more to process. A hot anger lit in Weiss’s chest.

“What happened?” she asked tightly.

“We got lost and there were ghosts and a monster and I bubbled a Gem and now it’s in my pocket and the mist was Mom’s tears and it’s the wrong day but I _know_ it’s not today and I found a piece of Scapolite on the beach and I think she might be—!”

“Wait, wait! Stop!” Weiss ordered, pulling back and grabbing Ruby by the shoulders. Eugh, _great,_ there were notes of rancid campfire on top of the mould smell. “You’re babbling. I’m going to need you to break it down slowly.”

Ruby nodded, gulping down a deep breath and opening her mouth again. Weiss slapped a hand over it.

 _“After_ you take a bath. I’ll have Klein find a set of night-clothes for you. Come on.”

* * *

The whole story had come out once Ruby had emerged from Weiss’s bathroom, bundled in a borrowed nightgown and bathrobe. Now she was repeating that story, much more coherently, to a larger audience. She and Weiss sat side-by-side on the couch in Ruby’s living room, one of Weiss’s own dresses peeking out from the oversized red sweater Ruby had immediately cocooned herself in upon their arrival. Yang was perched on the edge of her own seat as she leaned forward to listen. Either she or Weiss must have evicted Qrow from his usual spot, because he stood with his arms folded along the back of Ozpin’s chair, watching Ruby intently. Ozpin was as serenely unreadable as ever, the fingers of one hand poised and still atop the handle of his cane.

There was, technically, one other person present: the bubbled Gemstone floating just above the surface of the coffee table.

“Holy crap, Ruby,” Yang said as soon as the account was finished.

“There was one more thing, too,” Ruby admitted. She leaned past Weiss, holding out her closed hand. Yang held out her own expectantly, and Ruby gently placed the Gem shard she’d found in her palm. Based on the look of dread on the Ametrine’s face, she put two and two together even faster than Ruby had.

“What is that?” Qrow asked, craning forward to look. Ozpin ducked his head, glancing up at him with a touch of reproach.

“Ah, Qrow…”

“Sorry, forgot.”

“It’s Scapolite,” Yang said numbly. “A shard of her Gemstone.”

“Where did you find it?” Ozpin asked, looking to Ruby.

“On the northern coast. Like it had washed up out of the ocean.”

“She must’ve gone around Forever Fall,” Qrow guessed, brow furrowed in thought. “That was always possible, but I didn’t think she’d risk goin’ too close to Beacon or the rich district. Too many cameras, regular patrols, and the route’s easy to scout from above. She got damn lucky.”

“Do _lucky_ Gems shed pieces of Gemstone wherever they go?” Yang asked bitterly. “Gods! I can’t believe I lost her back in the forest. _Stupid…”_

Ruby clenched her fists on the hem of her sweater. “It’s not your fault, Yang.”

 _“None_ of us are at fault for the current situation,” Ozpin said with a knowing glance in the hybrid’s direction. “Nor is the task before us as hopeless as it may now seem. Even _if_ Scapolite was successful in reaching the warp outside Merlot’s lab, she remains at a disadvantage in terms of local intelligence. Based on what we understand of the Record’s function, it can only tell her so much. Whatever she may know about this world, we know more.”

Some of the tension in Yang seemed to abate, and Ruby looked to be breathing a little easier. Weiss, for her part, was torn. She found she couldn’t help worrying about Scapolite, at least a little, but the adventure-gone-wrong in Forever Fall wasn’t the only story Ruby had told her the night before. Peridot, Homeworld, the Diamonds…the situation on Remnant had shifted from a true peace to a secret cold war, and Scapolite was a wild card. An enemy by default, but a potential ally if only they could reach her in time.

Weiss’s gaze flicked to the shard in Yang’s hand, and she grimaced.

“This does present an opportunity to bring others into the search effort,” Ozpin said. “Given Scapolite’s worsening injuries, we can claim concern for her welfare.” A faint smile. “Truthfully, even. It’s reasonable to assume her judgement is somewhat impaired by this point as well, so it won’t seem suspicious that she is evading those who would help her.”

Yang nodded, a tiny bubble forming around the shard in her hand. “So where do we start?”

“I’ll begin reaching out to other Gem Huntsmen immediately. It will take a few days to coordinate a proper search, so in the meantime, why don’t all of you take some time for yourselves?”

“Take some time?” Yang stared at Ozpin like he’d suggested a bit of recreational arson. “Scapolite doesn’t _have_ time!”

“We shall simply have to hope that she does. We don’t have the means to grid-search an entire planet _,_ Yang,” Ozpin said, not unkindly. “Even searching the valley in such a way would be impossible. The object of our search is a single person trained in stealth and devoid of physical needs, and with this discovery we know the other trails we’ve been following are either false leads or cold ones. We need to act carefully now, develop a new plan of action and take the time to properly organise its execution.”

“I can still start searching on my own—”

“—and what, hope you find her on pure luck?” Qrow shook his head. “We’ve been lookin’ for her since the start of August. September’s basically over. Face it, Yang, your friend’s good at hiding. She’s built for it. This ain’t a problem you can solve with ‘try, try again’. We gotta go at this the smart way.”

“I’m certain we’ll be able to find her in short order once we’re prepared,” Ozpin said with a reassuring smile. “Please try not to worry too much.” He’d started out talking to Yang, but made it clear with a glance that he was also addressing Ruby and Weiss.

Something was odd in the way he looked at her, specifically, Weiss thought, but it happened so quickly she didn’t have a chance to try and pinpoint what had made her think that. _It’s probably nothing. Get a grip._

“So…hurry up and wait?” Ruby frowned. “I guess that’s all we can really do right now, huh…”

“What you can do is rest. Recharge. Make sure you’re at your best for when we resume the search in earnest.” Ozpin’s hand closed on his cane. He stood, signalling an end to their little meeting. “That goes for you as well, Qrow. I’ll need your help reaching out to the others soon enough. Miss Schnee, needless to say, you are welcome to stay as long as you wish.”

Yang sighed. “Well, if I can’t do anything, I’m not sticking around here. Call me as soon as there’s something for me to do?” There was a faint pleading note to her last declaration that turned it into more of a question, which Ozpin answered with a shallow nod.

“Of course.”

* * *

Weiss heard a motorcycle engine revving up shortly after Yang left. The sound grew abruptly louder, then began to slowly fade until it was quiet enough to be covered by the sound of the garage door rumbling down.

“I can’t believe she bothers with that thing when she can teleport,” Weiss sighed. “Or _fly.”_

Ruby shrugged. “It’s fun.” She still seemed a bit downcast, her idle gaze continually drawn back to the floor beneath her feet. Weiss frowned.

“I know looking for Scapolite is important, but I expected them to have more to say about what happened to you,” she said rather reproachfully. She didn’t bother keeping her voice down; Ozpin had vanished upstairs almost before Yang reached the door, Qrow following the Ametrine a moment later. “It was like as soon as you showed them the shard, they forgot about _you.”_

“They’ve just got a bad case of mission brain right now.” Catching Weiss’s expression, Ruby explained, “That’s what Dad calls the way you hafta think when you’re in the field. You break down everything you can into problems and solutions, and the rest gets filed away for later. They’re not trying to ignore me, they’re just… _really_ focused on fixing everything else.”

“Well, that’s just—” Exactly how Winter usually operated, Weiss realised. _When did I stop being used to that?_ “How is that an excuse?” she blustered, shoving the thought aside.

“They’ve been having a hard time lately…”

“And you _haven’t?”_

“Not as bad as them! …Until yesterday,” Ruby added in a mumble when Weiss glared at her.

“You’re just a kid, Ruby.” Ruby’s looked a little hurt by that, but Weiss didn’t notice, crossing her arms and looking away. “Parents are supposed to take care of their kids, not just wallow in their own problems.”

“But…they’re not actually my parents. And I don’t think I’m ready to talk to Dad about this yet…”

“Well, they _should_ be!” Weiss stood up, pacing, the resentment in the pit of her stomach giving her a burst of energy. “You keep saying they raised you, but the most _raising_ I’ve ever seen them do is sending you to a tutor and grounding you once! Really, there’s only so much maturity I expect from _Yang,_ but Qrow’s always trying to act like he’s the cool uncle or whatever and I swear Ozpin treats you all more like underlings than family!”

She wheeled around to look at Ruby—but instead of the shock or denial she expected, she found Ruby with a hand clapped over her mouth, her face slowly turning red as incriminating noises escaped her.

_“What?”_

“You— _snrk—_ calling someone out for— _pff—_ being bossy?”

“Ruby, this isn’t about me!” Weiss protested as Ruby finally succumbed to snickering.

“You sure?” Ruby managed, voice wobbling with laughter.

She put her hand on her hip. “And what is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“You’re—” Ruby took a deep breath, settling herself. “It’s nice of you to worry about me. You’re taking this really personally, that’s all I meant.”

“Oh no.” Weiss pointed down at her, narrowing her eyes. “Don’t you start that. Don’t you _dare_ try to _fix_ me. _I_ am _fine—_ I’m not going through anything right now,” she amended, just in case Ruby tried to argue the point. “You are. You already talked to me, for whatever that’s worth, and you say you’re not ready to talk to your dad, so fine.”

She gestured vaguely towards the door and the stairs, conveniently adjacent to one another as they were. “ _They_ all had you to talk them through their problems. Is it so much to ask for them to return the favour?”

“You mean at the lab? It’s not like I gave them all therapy. I just made sure they knew I was there for them.”

“Whereas they…? Oh, that’s right. They _left.”_

Ruby shook her head. “Weiss, why do you think I tried to help them when they needed it?”

“Because you’re…freakishly nice!” Weiss spat.

“Because it was the right thing to do.” Ruby fidgeted. “Because they _taught_ me it was the right thing to do. Them and Dad. They’ve always supported me, so I learned to support them, too. This is _one_ time they haven’t been there for me out of so many times they _have,_ and even if it’d be nice to talk to them about Mom, I’d rather we focused on helping Scapolite while we still can.” She paused, realisation dawning over her features. “Huh.”

“What?” Weiss asked, puzzlement winning out over anger.

“It’s just, you’re right, I didn’t get to talk things out and I was kind of hurt about it.” Ruby scratched her head. “Trying to convince you I was okay with it made me realise that I’m still hurt, but I really _am_ okay with it, too. Weird, right?”

“Yes!” Weiss said bluntly. Ruby laughed.

“It’s still true, though! Guess it’s about time I practiced what I preach when it comes to talking feelings. It worked for Yang and Qrow…oh, come on!” Ruby whined, seeing the exasperated look on Weiss’s face. “I didn’t decide they needed an intervention out of the blue! I was trying to get them to Fuse before I died of radiation poisoning. Totally selfish motive!”

“Get them to _what?_ No, wait.” Weiss thought back. “Fuse. _Fusion._ You’ve mentioned that before.”

“I did?”

“What does it mean? You said it was something Gems could do—something Homeworld doesn’t allow.” Weiss tried to remember farther back. “And I think Yang said it was how your mother got new weapon forms…?”

“Okay, so!” Ruby jumped up from her seat, looking legitimately enthused for the first time Weiss had seen in the last 24 hours. “Fusion is like—multi-Gem shapeshifting. Two Gems, or maybe more than two, I’m don’t know, they can combine themselves into one bigger Gem who’s a whole new person, with cool new powers and a special weapon…” She trailed off as Weiss eyed her sceptically. “No really, I’ve seen it! I mean, I didn’t actually see it _happen_ the second time, but remember that Gem I mentioned, Chrysoberyl? She was Yang and Ozpin’s Fusion—and it must have been super confusing that I was just talking about her like you were supposed to know who she was, I’m so sorry, I was really out of it last night.”

“It’s…fine…”

“Anyway, the _first_ time I saw a Fusion was when Yang and _Qrow_ Fused into Charoite, who’s like this super-cool samurai-looking Gem with awesome wings and they’re _really_ tall and…purple. Very purple. They’re _amazing,”_ Ruby raved. “Chrysoberyl mentioned a couple of Ozpin’s other Fusions named Heliodor and Serpentine, too, and—Weiss, are you okay?”

Weiss had slumped back down on the couch, holding her head. “Hm? Oh, I’m fine. You have mix-and-match family members. That’s fine. Very normal.” She cleared her throat. “So how does it work? Fusion.”

Ruby’s excitement visibly dimmed. “Oh. Uh. Dancing.”

“Dancing.”

“Yup.”

_“Why?”_

Ruby shrugged awkwardly. “Yang said something about focus and being synced up and stuff.” She looked thoughtful suddenly—hopeful, even. “I wonder if sparring could work instead?”

“Why would it matter? If they can all Fuse, they must all be able to dance.” Weiss did her best to shove aside the downright surreal mental images. _Gem stuff is supposed to be ancient and solemn and mysterious, or totally alien and incomprehensible._ This _is silly._

Ruby looked at her feet, mumbling something.

“Wanna try that out loud this time?”

 _“I_ can’t dance,” she admitted, drawing the sock-clad toes of one foot in an arc over the hardwood.

Weiss raised her eyebrows, surprised. “Really?”

“It’s not exactly part of a normal education these days,” Ruby said defensively. “I have never _once_ been in a situation where I thought ‘oh no, why didn’t I learn _ballroom dancing?’_ At least not before I found out about Fusion. How’m I supposed to Fuse if I can’t dance?”

“How are you supposed to Fuse at all? You’re…” Weiss waved a hand up and down Ruby’s body.

“Only half!” Ruby crossed her arms. “There’s never been anyone like me. I don’t know for sure I can’t Fuse until I try, right? But I _can’t_ try, because I can’t dance.”

Weiss rolled her eyes. “Yes, you can.”

“No, I can’t. I just said that.” She looked uncertain for a split-second. “Didn’t I?”

“Ruby, I’ve seen you fight. You can dance. You just don’t know how.” Weiss sighed enormously, standing up. “Take off your socks. You’re an accident waiting to happen with them on.”

Looking mystified, Ruby perched on the edge of a chair and hooked her fingers into her socks, pulling them off. Weiss balanced on one foot at a time as she removed her heels. She set them aside and paged through her scroll’s music app until she found what she was looking for, a simple waltz.

“Uh, Weiss?” Ruby began to look alarmed as soft music filled the living room.

“Remember how I keep having to defer to you when I don’t know things?”

“Yeah, you hate it.”

“Well, this time it’s your turn to hate it.” Weiss tapped her left shoulder. “Hand here.”

Hesitantly, Ruby rested her fingers where Weiss had indicated. She stiffened in surprise as Weiss took her other hand and held it out, putting her left hand on Ruby’s waist. Weiss huffed, rolling her eyes.

“Just pay attention! This is called a box step. I’ll lead, so all you have to do is mirror what I’m doing with my feet.”

She stepped forward with one foot, then stumbled as Ruby did the same, the two nearly colliding. “I said _mirror_ me, not _mimic_ me!”

“I did!” Ruby protested. “I did what you did but reversed! I mirrored!”

“W-well! That wasn’t right! When I step forward, you’re supposed to step back.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s try again.”

She waited for the next measure, then stepped forward again. This time, Ruby stepped back.

_Okay!_

She side-stepped—then stumbled again as Ruby did the same move in reverse.

“Oh,” Ruby said as they caught their balance. “Was _that_ where I was supposed to mirror you? I’m sorry! Maybe we should just stop…”

“No, it’s fine,” Weiss said in a tone that indicated the opposite. She squeezed her eyes shut, thinking. “A box step is about matching distance. You need to move with me, keep on me like, uh…” Like what? There had to be some way to translate this into Ruby’s language…

“Imagine we’re in close combat. I’m trying to disengage, and you don’t want that,” Weiss told her. “Every step I take, you need to be right there with me. You can’t let me get away or get past you. Got it?”

“I think so…”

Again, Weiss stepped. Again, Ruby followed. She side-stepped, and this time Ruby stepped with her.

“No—don’t bring your feet together until the next beat. It’s an easy pattern. _One_ two three _four_ five six…”

Gradually their steps grew more fluid, and Weiss let the count fall away. Ruby took it up instead, whispering it under her breath and gently bobbing her head on 1 and 4.

“This is easy,” she said, surprised.

“Technically, you can waltz now,” Weiss informed her. “As long as the music is 3/4 and slow.”

Ruby pouted. “I bet I could go faster.”

“Maybe _you_ can, but the waltz isn’t supposed to. Not this kind, anyway.”

“There are other kinds?”

“Plenty. The best-known kind of fast waltz is the Argonite waltz. Rarely seen outside of formal balls and competitions. It’s not a beginner’s dance.”

“Can we try a spin?” Ruby asked suddenly.

“You _just_ learned how not to step on my feet.”

“But— _spinning!_ It’s fun!”

“How would you know? You’ve never danced before.”

“Not really. But when I was little, I used to try, you know, on my own.”

“Ballerina phase?” Weiss guessed.

Ruby blushed. “Possibly.”

“Don’t be embarrassed. Ballet is incredibly difficult. I’d actually be impressed if you’d pursued the interest.”

“I mean, I was _really_ young. Five or six. I think I was still living with my dad and visiting here, or maybe I’d just moved in…”

“That’s about how old I was when mine struck, too.”

“Did you try it?”

“For a few years. Then Winter got me interested in fencing. What about you? I take it you never took your own interest farther?”

“I…I’m not sure tiny Ruby really got how ballet worked. I kinda just ran in circles around the living room and practiced standing like a stork.”

“And spinning?”

“And getting spun.” Ruby smiled, her eyes distant. “Every time I went past Ozpin’s chair if he was sitting there I’d put out a hand and he’d take it and spin me, kinda, I mean, it was really messy but I kept making him do it anyway. I totally forgot about that.”

 _Underarm turn,_ Weiss concluded; she hadn’t been totally sure what Ruby had meant by ‘spin’.

“And then Yang would barge in and try to teach me stupid idol dances so she’d have someone to do them with.” Ruby snickered.

“Of _course_ she did.” Weiss’s thoughts drifted a little. She swallowed around the sudden knot in her throat. “My brother Whitley and I learned to dance at the same time. We didn’t really get along all that well even when we were younger, but when we were practicing, we were partners. We had to work together if we wanted to improve. He’s still the first person I think about whenever I dance.”

“You never talk about him.”

“There isn’t a lot to talk about,” Weiss admitted. “The only thing he and I really have in common is our name.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It isn’t your fault.” Weiss hesitated. “Want to try that spin, now?”

Ruby’s face lit up.

It was, without a doubt, the messiest turn in dance history, even counting Ruby’s preschool-aged efforts. Everything conspired against its success: the beat of the music, the edge of the rug Weiss hadn’t realised they were approaching, the fact that the girls’ matched heights forced their arms to an uncomfortable angle to let Ruby pass beneath, bending awkwardly at the knees to make it work.

“Okay, that was bad, that was bad,” Ruby laughed, nearly tripping over her feet.

“Wait a minute!” Struck by a bolt of inspiration, or perhaps insanity, Weiss climbed up on the arm of the sofa. “Okay, here we go!”

Ruby mock-gasped. _“Feet_ on the _furniture,_ Weiss!?”

“J-just this once! I’m doing you a favour _,_ you know!”

Ruby approached, took her hand, and as soon as the music reached a likely-sounding crescendo Weiss lifted her arm and guided the other girl as she twirled. It wasn’t too bad on Ruby’s part; Weiss was a little _too_ tall, now, and she bent slightly at the waist to get the angle right. Just as Ruby reached the apex of her spin Weiss overbalanced, slipping right off the couch.

“Ack!” Ruby caught her, but her weight hit with so little warning that all that achieved was to send the two of them spilling onto the floor together in a tangle of limbs, with Ruby breaking the other girl’s fall. Weiss wound up with a faceful of sweater, lifting her head and working her mouth like a disgruntled cat, trying to get rid of the fuzz.

Ruby started giggling, and looking down at her, Weiss couldn’t help it; she cracked up too, fuzzy tongue and all.

“I can’t believe you did that,” Ruby wheezed.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time!”

“You’re a good friend, Weiss.” Ruby grinned up at her. “Thanks.”

Weiss would have responded, but Ruby didn’t give her the chance, lifting her arms and hugging her. She couldn’t find the words then, but it didn’t matter, because she was warm—a little too warm, from all the dancing—and Ruby was happy, and they were together.

She must have closed her eyes.

Must have moved.

Must have…changed? Because she was wearing Ruby’s red sweater—

—had already been wearing her sweater, and where was Weiss?—

—was right here, it was Ruby that had vanished—

“No, I’m right here too,” she said, frowning.

She lay on the floor a moment longer, staring up at the ceiling. She’d never really looked up in Ruby’s living room before, but the patterns made by the light and shadow playing over the ceiling looked familiar regardless. The music had stopped at some point; of course, she remembered, that track was the last in the album. She wasn’t sure why she knew that, when it was on Weiss’s scroll.

“That’s not my voice,” she mused aloud. No, it sure wasn’t. It wasn’t Weiss’s—Ruby’s— _the other one’s_ either.

Slowly, a hypothesis came together in her head. She was spared the effort of testing it herself when the front door opened, admitting Qrow.

Well, that just set off a whole cluster of unexpected reactions, didn’t it? A spark of discomfort, because she wasn’t used to interacting with him on her own—a rush of happiness and admiration, because as much as she loved her dad (she…did love her dad, didn’t she?) Qrow was obviously the coolest person in the world. Except for Winter. Including Winter?

_Okay…that should not be as disorienting to dwell on as it is._

She decided to call it a tie between Qrow and Winter’s coolness levels. That seemed to banish the odd little sparking, cracking feeling in the back of her head which had sprung up once she’d started contradicting herself.

“Hey, Qrow,” she called, sitting up. “Got a question for you.”

Qrow startled, badly; he practically slammed the door shut behind him, reaching out in the way he did when he meant to summon his scythe as he whirled to face her. But when he actually saw her, the motion halted, no weapon appearing in his grasp as his fingers slowly curled. She waved at him.

“…Who are you?” he asked, not quite _warily,_ but…uncertain. Off-balance.

“Mm.” She clicked her tongue. “That was the question in question. Shoot.”

He was silent, at that. Then he half-turned towards the stairs.

 _“Oz?”_ he yelled, rather plaintive, she thought. Almost frightened, which seemed uncalled-for. She hadn’t done anything _wrong,_ after all, and she didn’t think there was anything wrong _about_ her, either. Unprecedented, sure. But, she reflected, pride and anxiety mingling, she was used to being unprecedented.

“You needn’t shout,” Ozpin chided; she could just hear his footsteps on the upper floor. He never moved quite as sneaky-silent in the house as he did elsewhere. The rhythmic tap of his cane joined in as he descended the stairs.

“I, uh…” Qrow didn’t even bother trying to respond. As soon as Ozpin was far enough down to see, the Pearl just pointed at her wordlessly. Ozpin’s eyebrows rose, and he took the last few steps at a much reduced pace. His gaze sharpened into the calculating scrutiny that had begun to rankle at Weiss. But she wasn’t Weiss, or at least she wasn’t _only_ Weiss, and she knew the look would pass. His expression was already softening again.

“Hi.” She waved again, smiling cheerily. “I think I might be a scientific impossibility!”

Qrow was still staring at her like he wasn’t entirely convinced she didn’t bite. Ozpin, though—oh, as soon as she spoke, Ozpin _beamed._

“You’ve _Fused!”_ He sounded utterly delighted. Surprised, too. Exclamation points weren’t part of his usual repertoire.

“No. What? No. Bullshit.” Qrow shook his head.

“Well, my dear, it’s either that or a strange human has broken into our house, stolen Ruby’s sweater, and managed to lock the girls in the basement without any of us noticing.”

“I am insulted you’d think either of them would go down so easily,” she informed Qrow, crossing her arms and giving him a look of severe disappointment.

“It was always possible she would turn out to be able to Fuse,” Ozpin reminded the Pearl.

Qrow sputtered. “With _another Gem,”_ he managed. “How is this not driving you up a wall!?”

“I suppose I’m simply enjoying the novelty of a _pleasant_ surprise.” He approached her and bent down, one hand on his cane, the other extended towards her. “Up you come, young—ah…”

“You can still call me that if it helps. How _do_ Fusions get their names, anyway?” she asked, accepting his help to stand. “Do you just _know,_ or—”

Her voice failed her as Ozpin drew her up to her full height, her eyes darting towards a floor that was suddenly much, much too far away.

“Am I tall?” she squeaked.

“About six feet tall, I would estimate,” Ozpin said, and as weird as it was to be so far from the floor it was just as disorienting to realise she barely had to look up at him. In fact, once he stepped back, she found she could meet his eyes straight-on. “Fusion height is somewhat unpredictable. Ruby and Weiss, however, are fully material, and thus subject to different physical restraints than Gems.”

“Conservation of mass,” she realised, nodding to herself. “Of course. The matter in their bodies had to go somewhere. But their heights add up to more than—oh, proportions, right.”

 _Wait, so why do my clothes still fit?_ She looked down. Ruby’s sweater was now fitted rather than enveloping, but her dress was still about knee-length, like the ones they’d each been wearing. It was also _one_ dress, and the skirt looked different somehow, and she’d bet the top of it had changed as well. _Did my clothes Fuse too? That doesn’t make any sense. But what about this whole thing_ does _make sense?_

“Let’s have a look at you,” Ozpin said. He still held her hand and now he lifted it, leading her through a slow turn much as Weiss had tried to do for Ruby. She found herself grinning. They had done this before, after all, even if she’d been a lot smaller all those years ago—even if she barely knew him.

“Perfect physical integration. A coherent and distinct personality. And you’re fully lucid. She’s stable,” he said to Qrow, sounding pleased, if a little incredulous. “An accidental Fusion between components who’ve known each other less than a single year, and she’s _stable.”_

“Good?” Qrow had relaxed a little since she’d last looked at him; at least, he no longer looked like he was tensed to flee. But something about him seemed oddly lost.

 _Maybe I_ did _do something wrong?_

“It isn’t your fault,” Ozpin said to her softly, as if reading her mind; he squeezed her hand gently before releasing it. “Fusion can be something of a wild card in how it affects pre-existing relationships.”

“But it’s not like Ruby’s gone…”

“He knows that, and he loves you. He fears the reverse may not be true, however.” He smiled, and it made his eyes crease a little at the corners. “What do you say to proving him wrong?”

 _Real smile,_ Ruby’s well-honed internal sensor pinged, and it warmed her. Had she really started to think of him like—?

Whatever words she might have reached for were swallowed up by the sudden turmoil of her clashing emotions, so she nodded silently in response to Ozpin’s suggestion. His smile deepened. He turned so his shoulders formed a wide angle with hers, holding out a hand to Qrow. “No need to be shy, Qrow. You already know each other. Come and say hello.”

Qrow approached like he was headed to his execution, seemingly unwilling to make eye contact with either of them. As soon as he was close enough, Ozpin’s hand latched onto his arm and forced him to either pick up the pace or be reeled in like a stunned fish, unwilling but unresisting. He ended up with Ozpin’s arm around his stiff shoulders, a gesture that for all the Garnet’s placid demeanour seemed more for restraint than support.

“Hey again,” she said tentatively, trying out another smile.

“Hey.”

“Qrow,” Ozpin prompted, his tone pleasant and his stare unblinking. Qrow glanced at him and then looked quickly away, clearing his throat.

“Sorry. I, uh. This is weird.”

“No weirder than Charoite,” she pointed out. “Not _much_ weirder, anyway. I don’t get how it’s possible either, but Gems Fuse because they’re made of the same stuff, and Ruby and Weiss are made of the same stuff, so…?”

“Guess that’s true,” Qrow conceded warily.

“You’re not upset, are you?” she asked, clasping her hands to keep from fidgeting. “I—I’m pretty sure I can un-Fuse if it’s that big a deal.” _I don’t really want to go away yet. I just got here! But…_

The thought of Qrow’s anger towards Chrysoberyl directed at her instead was deeply unpleasant. _Anything_ was worth avoiding that.

“That won’t be necessary,” Ozpin assured her, before returning his attention to Qrow. “Will it?”

It was hard to say which had shaken Qrow more, her offer or Ozpin’s question, but he looked down at his feet, pressing a hand to his forehead. “No. _Shit._ I’m screwing this up. Look, uh—Quartz?”

She made a face. “Doesn’t feel right. Only 25% accurate anyway.”

“Yeah…hey, I’m not gonna take off,” he told Ozpin. “Gimme a little credit here.” The Garnet hummed quietly and released him, taking a step back. “Sorry I froze. It’s not you. I just didn’t know how to react.”

He rubbed the back of his neck the way Ruby did when she felt particularly sheepish, and the Fusion bit back a smile at the sight. “No, it’s okay. I know sudden change can be hard for you guys. Dad—”

_(“I don’t have time for this nonsense, Weiss. Go ask your mother, if you can rouse her.”)_

“— _Taiyang_ told me,” she grimaced as the earlier headache threatened a return, “uh, told Ruby it took awhile for everyone to get used to him, and that was with you knowing what he was. But I’m…”

“A scientific impossibility,” Qrow repeated wryly, finally cracking a smile of his own. “Yeah. But hey, so’s Ruby. There’s no net change in the freak-of-nature population here.”

_“Qrow.”_

She giggled at Ozpin’s hissed admonition, and Qrow gestured to her, raising an eyebrow at the other Gem. “See? She gets it. Don’t get precious.”

“Yeah, you think I’d be insulted by _Qrow_ calling me names? Qrow? Come on. That’s like getting upset at a toddler trying to make fun of my grammar.”

“Hey now! Ozpin’s a lot of things, but he ain’t a toddler.”

“Please, he’d never make fun of me for that. I’m half-Weiss, my grammar is flawless— _and_ that would require Ozpin to be acquainted with the concept of ‘fun’.”

Ozpin shook his head minutely, giving a quiet sigh. “Why was I worried? You two have gone from zero to ganging up on me in no time at all.”

“It _is_ the family pastime,” Qrow reflected.

“No, that’s ganging up on _you,”_ she corrected. “Ozpin doesn’t leave as many openings.”

Qrow looked faintly disgruntled now. “You know, I didn’t realise I was signing up for a second Yang, here.”

“Implying Yang would ever give me even a backhanded compliment.”

“She would if it let her insult me at the same time.”

Ozpin gave a little one-shouldered shrug, tipping his head in acceptance. “Well now, if it’s not too forward to ask, my dear, what do you intend to do next?”

She startled as she realised he was talking to her. “Oh. Um. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just…go up to Ruby’s room until this wears off?”

“Oh _hell_ no.” Qrow crossed his arms. “You’re a whole new person. There’s _nothing_ you wanna try? Nothing at all? Nowhere you wanna go?”

She hesitated. “Well…”

“That’s more like it.” Qrow clearly took her indecision as encouragement, turning her around and pointing her at the door. “Fly free, kiddo. Hey, no using your shiny new grown-up face to go anywhere you shouldn’t though, okay? Anywhere worthwhile’s gonna card you anyway.”

“Shiny new grown-up face?” she echoed, looking back at him in surprise.

He laughed. “Spend some quality time with a bottle of peroxide and you could pass for the Ice Queen.”

“I expect you carry something reflective in here,” Ozpin said, handing her Weiss’s purse. And her scroll, a moment after. He must have fetched the items while Qrow was trying to more or less shove her out the door. She dug through and found a compact mirror, flipping it open.

Qrow…wasn’t wrong. Her cheekbones arched a little too broadly, her cheeks were too full, but Ruby’s stubborn chin and wider jaw had evened that out a little, reducing the heart shape their faces normally shared. She had Ruby’s eyes, too, bright like burnished metal, and then…then there was her hair. Her oh-so-pale hair, which at first glance she took for Weiss’s white but soon realised was very slightly tinted pink. She still had Weiss’s scrunchie in, but her bangs were longer than the human girl’s, already parted away from her face in a style that recalled Ruby’s chin-length cut.

“Oh…wow.” She touched her face in disbelief, running a few strands of pinkish hair between her fingers.

“Grown-up face,” Qrow repeated, crossing his arms. “Don’t abuse it. You’re still a kid in all the ways that matter, even if you got a few extra years of memories now.”

“Understood.” Still feeling a little shell-shocked, she closed up the compact and slipped it into the purse along with Weiss’s scroll. “And I’ll be careful while I’m out,” she added hesitantly. It felt strange to say to them. Ruby never did.

“Ah, not just yet.” Ozpin pointedly glanced down at her feet. Her bare feet, that she’d been about to walk outside with in late September. “I believe Yang has a collection of material clothes. Perhaps you ought to see if she has any shoes that fit you…?”

“Oh.” She blushed. “Right.”

* * *

Either she had small feet for her size, or Yang had big ones for hers, or some combination of the two; the Ametrine’s footwear collection fit her snugly but still within the range of acceptable comfort. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much that would go with white.

“I guess we’re wearing brown,” she sighed, zipping on a pair of knee-high boots and examining herself in the mirror. “They’ve got good traction, I guess. Oh! I care about traction. Point for Ruby.”

She grimaced at the sight of the sweater. White dress, pink hair, red sweater—the trio didn’t work well together, and of the three, the sweater was the only thing she could easily change. She grabbed the hem and pulled it over her head.

“Ack!” She yelped as the ornament on her scrunchie snagged on the fabric, struggling her arms wildly. The sweater eventually pulled free. The scrunchie was now hanging sadly near the base of her skull. She slid it out and onto her wrist, gathering up her hair.

Then she caught sight of her Gemstone, and let the strands fall.

Tentatively, she ran her fingers around the edge of the stone, feeling oddly anxious about the point where it met her skin. It was new and familiar all at once, a part of her from birth and a part she was never supposed to have. Fusion hadn’t altered it in the slightest, still the same deep, rosy red as always.

She shook herself, glancing down at the scrunchie.

_Maybe I’ll leave it down._

She went looking through Yang’s closet when she realised she still needed some kind of outerwear; whatever the Gem might have lying around would at least fit her better than anything Ruby owned, except—no. Not the cloak. Not yet. Eventually she found a brown jacket with seams set low on the shoulders, and sleeves just loose enough to roll above her elbows. She wouldn’t be able to zip it up, but it fit well enough hanging open.

She stared her reflection down for a long moment, her exposed Gemstone catching her eye once again. Then she took a deep breath and nodded, slinging Weiss’s purse over her shoulder.

She returned downstairs to find Ozpin and Qrow seated again, deeply engaged in conversation; their voices were too low for her to hear what they were talking about. They looked up as she carefully descended the stairs, still not entirely at home in her own body.

“Is this really okay?” she asked, almost biting her lip before she caught herself. “I still don’t even have a name.”

“Choosing your name is important,” Qrow said. “You gotta take your time with it.”

“Long-term Fusions who name themselves often use elements of their components’ names,” Ozpin suggested. “Perhaps you could take that as a place to start.”

“Or see what comes flying out the first time you have to introduce yourself.”

“If you get into trouble of any kind, or you destabilise unexpectedly, please call one of us or Yang,” Ozpin insisted, tossing another scroll at her; Ruby’s, retrieved from the borrowed overnight bag beside the couch. “Please feel free to transfer the relevant numbers to Weiss’s scroll, as well.”

She laughed, a little self-conscious, as she added Ruby’s scroll to her inventory. “Well then. Here I go. Wish me luck!”

“Luck’s a fickle bitch,” Qrow advised her. “Count on yourself instead.”

* * *

No sooner had the door shut than Ozpin started in on him, though he was rather half-hearted about it. “You really _shouldn’t_ swear so much around the girls.”

“I didn’t swear around the girls. I swore around their Fusion. Loophole.” He rubbed a hand over his stubble. _“Fuuuck,_ their _Fusion._ Still can’t wrap my brain around that.”

“It’s certainly an unexpected development. But a timely one. A stable Fusion with a close companion can be an excellent way to process trauma. I think this might prove a healing experience for Ruby—and an educational one for young Miss Schnee.”

Qrow eyed him curiously. “Does _young Miss Schnee_ need any specific kind of education?”

“Hm.”

“Oz…”

“She has grown progressively more uncomfortable around me every time we’ve interacted,” Ozpin said at last. “I don’t know why, but it’s troublesome. Discomfort encourages distrust, and distrust is infectious. She’s made herself central to Ruby’s life; increasingly, to Yang’s as well. Family or no, I cannot be certain they will remain steadfast if she should prove unable to trust us.”

Qrow’s eyebrows rose as he processed that grim declaration. _Not where I was expecting this conversation to go._ “Us?”

“You follow my lead more often than not. That won’t have escaped her notice. Any distrust of me will extend to you by default, unless you’re prepared to thoroughly disown me.”

“You haven’t done anything to make her see you as untrustworthy, though,” Qrow pointed out, leaning forward on his elbows. “You sure you’re not reading too much into this?” He wanted to suggest Oz was imagining things—but, shit, Qrow only faked being oblivious. _I don’t think she said a single word in that whole meeting today. And she was definitely focused on Oz, even when he wasn’t talking._

“I’ll allow I’m imagining the worst-case scenario. Still. ‘Hope for the best’ is only the first half of the axiom.” Lacing his fingers, Ozpin mirrored Qrow’s posture, staring in the direction of the coffee table but plainly not seeing it. “The events of the last several months have entwined Weiss’s life with ours, and I do not see that changing in the near future. Much like when Summer brought Taiyang home, we must accept that there are now five of us. I don’t wish to repeat the mistakes I made with him, especially not if we’re all under a time limit.”

“So,” Qrow began carefully, “this is a… _strategic_ concern.”

Ozpin nodded. “As matters now stand, Weiss Schnee represents a weak point that could easily be used to divide us at a critical juncture.”

“And you’re hoping some time grafted to Ruby’s psyche will patch that up? Help her see through your hard bastard shell to your chewy good-guy centre?”

Ozpin blinked rapidly, turning his head slightly to stare at Qrow.

“Y’know,” the Pearl added. “Since the back-to-back disaster marathon ruined any chance of her never getting past the cryptic-but-pleasant wrapper.”

“You’ve certainly committed to this metaphor.”

Qrow smirked. “Not bad for a guy who doesn’t eat, huh?”

The look on Ozpin’s face suggested otherwise. “I…suppose you’ve made it clear you understand my thought process. Yours is proving harder to grasp.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re sayin’ it bugs you that Weiss doesn’t seem to like you much,” Qrow drawled. “Oh—sorry, it _concerns_ you. _Strategically._ It’s not like you _care_ if Ruby’s best friend likes you, it’s just safer that way. Since they’re ‘the girls’ now, and all.”

And wouldn’t you know it, all of a sudden it was like Ozpin forgot how eye contact worked. “Well—is it not worrying that she seems to like me _less_ than she did before? It’s not unreasonable to assume the situation will worsen as time goes on.”

“Gee, maybe that’s because your two longest interactions with her so far have been,” Qrow counted them off on his fingers, “dinner, while she and Ruby were petrified that you were going to lose your shit if you ever found out they’d spent the day accidentally infiltrating Beacon, and then a _mission debrief_ in your giant look-how-great-and-powerful-I-am office after what had to have been one of the most stressful days of her life.”

“The office couldn’t have been any smaller if we were going to fit the clock in.”

“I ever mention how much I hate it when you miss the point on purpose?”

“Regardless, _my_ point still stands. We are strongest when we are united. If the worst should happen, and the situation with Peridot—and Scapolite—should prove to be the prelude to open war, we will need all our strength. We will need unity.”

“There it is,” Qrow said softly. “Your whole reassuring speech about how we’d solve everything easy and it was all gonna be okay. That supposed to fool me, too, or just the others?”

Ozpin was shaking his head before Qrow even finished speaking. “We _might_ solve everything easily. It _might_ all be okay. It was never my intent to _fool_ anyone—only to offer hope where it’s most needed.”

“Right now, I’d say _you’re_ where it’s most needed.”

“If I were truly without hope, I would lie down and wait to die. Please have a _little_ more faith in me than to assume I’ve already given up.”

“S’not about faith, Oz. I just…” _Hate seeing you like this. “Agh,”_ he growled, looking away.

“I told you,” Ozpin said quietly, “it isn’t your job to talk me out of melancholy.”

“ _Self-pity_. Never mentioned melancholy.”

That actually pulled a soft laugh out of Ozpin. “More loopholes?”

“Put tying better knots on your list of things to work on.” _Right after how to take better care of yourself._

Yet again, Ozpin seemed to hear what Qrow didn’t say. “You shouldn’t waste your energies fretting over me. There are far more important matters at hand.”

Which, he wasn’t _wrong—_ something something _needs of the many—_ but he wasn’t _right,_ either. Qrow sighed, shaking his head. “Well, the kids are gonna wanna focus on Scapolite, and you already worked out how we can put more people on her trail, but Peridot’s our real problem. What’re we gonna do about her?”

“Peridot’s _ship_ is our most pressing concern. A lone agent can certainly cause problems for us, but she would cease to pose any real threat if we could cut her off from her handlers. With the lunar relay destroyed, she can only send a transmission to Homeworld if she escapes Remnant’s magnetosphere.”

“And what’s to stop Homeworld from sending someone else to check up on us when she never reports back?”

Ozpin smiled thinly. “Who’s to say she’ll never report back?—or that her instruments won’t.”

“She’d’ve come on a survey ship,” Qrow realised, cracking his knuckles. At least he went through the motions; there were no quiet pops, no sense of released pressure. “Small, quiet, crammed full of equipment. Think there’s a stay-away beacon aboard?”

“If there isn’t, the ship itself can be made to function as one. So far as the Diamond Authority will know, Peridot will have been shattered in the line of duty, her final act being to broadcast that Remnant is both unsafe and unsalvageable. If we can convince them that they have nothing to gain and that we have already lost everything, they’ll have no motive to return—even to obliterate such a worthless planet from orbit would simply be a waste of resources.”

“Well.” Qrow levered himself off the sofa and went over to Ozpin, leaning against his chair and smirking down at him. “Looks like you had a plan after all.”

The Garnet raised an eyebrow. “Whatever happened to ‘it’s not about faith’?”

 _“Tch.”_ He shook his head. “So it’s a retrieval mission. Sabotage is more my bag than theft, but I’ll get the job done. How much can ships have really changed in six thousand years, anyway?”

“…Theft,” Ozpin murmured, straightening up. “Now _there’s_ an idea.”

“Oh?” Qrow’s interest turned to dread as he looked over Ozpin’s shoulder at his scroll. “Oh. _No._ Really?”

“This may be one of those cases where desperate measures can _forestall_ desperate times.” Ozpin dialled the number and raised the scroll to his ear.

“No, screw that, I wanna hear every word that bastard says.”

Wordlessly Ozpin tilted the scroll in his grip and tapped an icon. The ringing tone sounded faintly distorted through the louder speakers. Then it cut out.

_“How the hell do you know this number?”_

“The same way you know mine, I’d imagine. Or is that how you answer every call?” Even though the other Gem couldn’t see him, Ozpin smiled. “Good afternoon, Mr. Torchwick.”

The Gem profanity Torchwick returned was roughly equivalent to _‘Go fuck yourself’,_ which Qrow figured was fair given the state of their working relationship. The term he used to describe Ozpin specifically, though—Qrow immediately bristled. _Someone’s asking for a throttling._

“Goodness. I was sure you of all people would be above that sort of name-calling,” Ozpin said blithely. “What would Miss Neopolitan think?”

Static.

 _“You better have a_ very _good reason for saying that name to me.”_

“I do.”

Static again, but this time it was a loud rush—not silence, but a drawn-out, furious exhale.

_“What do you want?”_

“The location of a particular Gem—a Peridot. Feminine, unusually small, armed with an array of swords. She exclusively uses her Kindergarten designation, 3IX.”

_“And what aren’t you telling me about her?”_

“She’s a traditionalist. More than that, she considers herself loyal to the Diamond Authority. We believe she may have the means to leave Remnant.” Ozpin paused. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what that might mean.”

_“Ha! I was wondering why we skipped past the part where you try and appeal to my better nature. To be clear, the terms are…?”_

“You are to locate her. If immediate action is necessary to keep her on this side of the atmosphere, you are to take it. Either way, you are to inform me of all you have learned as soon as possible after learning it. So long as your information is legitimate, you’ll receive your payment.” As he spoke, Ozpin opened a file, made a few swift redactions, and sent it to Torchwick. An incredulous huff of a laugh echoed back over the line in response.

 _“You must really be desperate.”_ Qrow could practically hear the smirk in Torchwick’s voice. _“Not so nice at the other end of the noose, is it, Professor?”_

“Do we have an agreement?” Ozpin asked evenly.

_“As long as our feathered friend stays perched on your shoulder and not looking over mine, we’ve got a deal. In fact, while we’re at it, keep the Quartzes off my back, too. Especially the one that’s half-meat.”_

“Eugh.” The noise escaped before Qrow could stop himself.

 _“I_ thought _you had me on speaker. Hi, Qrow,”_ Torchwick half-sang.

“Go throw yourself in a tar pit.”

_“Bye, Qrow.”_

“I promise there will be no harassment from any of us,” Ozpin said. “Fulfil your end of the bargain and we’ll hold to ours. No tricks. No catch.”

 _“Working for you is its own catch. Don’t call me; I’ll call you. Spare us all a lot of awkward small talk.”_ Torchwick hung up without another word.

“Is this really worth it?” Qrow asked, looking down at Ozpin as the Demantoid tucked his scroll back into his jacket pocket.

“As long as we’re choosing between calamities,” Ozpin said heavily, “I’ll take a hurricane over an apocalypse.”

* * *

She hadn’t really had a plan when she left the house. Twice-ingrained habit had carried her to the airbus station, where she spared a moment to be grateful airbus passes didn’t have photos on them; it would have been, uh, _interesting_ to try and present them together while explaining to some overworked station employee that she was both cardholders in one body. When she’d stepped out of the mainland terminal, she’d had no more of a plan than she had back on Patch, so she followed her feet. They’d led her here: a concrete bench beneath a willow tree, overlooking the dying-back gardens outside the natural history museum.

“Phew, this brings back memories, doesn’t it?” she asked…herself, she supposed, shaking off the weird urge to wait for a reply that would never come. “We really didn’t know what to make of each other, did we?”

She cracked a smile, bracing her palms against the bench and leaning back. “Well, I suppose _I’m_ what we made of each other.” She laughed quietly.

“So who _am_ I, anyway? What can I _do?”_ She closed her eyes, focusing on her Gemstone. It warmed as it always did when she called on it, a strange and unnerving sensation that had her withdrawing from it immediately. “Oh no, no, no no no. We’ll get back to that later.” She patted her Gemstone reassuringly—though she wasn’t entirely sure who she meant to reassure.

“Okay, so I can still connect to my Gemstone, but I don’t know which powers I can actually use. I wonder if I can still access Zwei’s floof compartment? …Eh, not important,” she decided. “It’s weird that I’m talking to myself, right? I mean, neither of us do that. Or—are we talking to each other?”

She looked to her left for Weiss. Looked to her right for Ruby. “Yeah. Okay.”

She sat in silence for a time, just looking around. Taking it in. The museum was doing a brisk bit of Saturday business, mostly families with children, but there were a few small clusters of adults and even a handful of individuals going in as well.

“Do I like museums?” she wondered aloud. “I think I do.”

* * *

“It’s not like I _need_ a student discount, I’m a _Schnee_ ,” she muttered to herself, walking along the upper gallery. “Ugh, but I could have saved five whole lien! I could’ve bought a pastry later. I mean, I still _can,_ but it won’t be the same. Maybe I should ask for a bigger allowance, this thrift complex is ridiculous. Ruby. _Ruby_ should ask for a bigger allowance.”

She passed by a hanging pterodactyl—pteranodon?— _pterosaur_ skeleton, shoving away the brief but powerful urge to break down into petals, float out, and touch its beak. _No. No touching the artefacts. Bad…uh…Fusion._

“Still need a name,” she sighed under her breath, skirting a gaggle of college students taking turns snapping photos of display of fractal-like dendrites. “Let’s see…”

She turned onto a corridor with a geologic timeline mural, moving at a slow, thoughtful pace, one foot precisely in front of the other like a model walking a runway. “So I guess normal Fusions must name themselves after the Gems they end up looking like, or just minerals maybe…Charoite definitely _looked_ like a charoite sample, and chrysoberyls come in Chrysoberyl colours. Maybe they’ve got similar abilities to non-Fusion versions of those Gem types, too? Should’ve asked. Dammit, I never got to ask about weapon names, either! Ugh.”

She sighed. “I guess none of that actually matters, though. My closest Gem type match is still Rose Quartz. But I’m _not_ a Rose Quartz. I’m even less of one than Ruby is. Maybe I can use that, though…? Rose…Ruby Rose Quartz…Weiss Schnee…Snowrose?” She wrinkled her nose. “Mm. Maybe. Snowruby is dumb…Redsnow is my serial-killer name…Whiterose?” She raised her eyebrows, weighing that one. It had a ring to it, but running the consonants together felt odd. So did putting the emphasis on _white_. “White Rose,” she enunciated.

“White Rose. Hi, I’m White Rose, it’s nice to meet you. My name’s White Rose,” she tried— _very_ quietly, conscious that she wasn’t _actually_ alone, even if she had kept a good-sized bubble of personal space so far. “It’s a little clunky, isn’t it? Someone’s gonna end up shortening it. _Weissrose,”_ she tested, pronouncing it the Old Mantelian way, with a V at the start and a taller vowel in _rose._ “Roseblanc— _ou blanche?_ No. Rosa alba. Rosalba?”

It was elegant, she thought. Refined. …Old lady-ish.

“Why do my sensibilities have to be a _perfect mix_ of _polar opposites?”_ she groaned. “Sorry, Ruby, it’s going on the list. I don’t wanna be stuck with Snowrose by _default.”_

She’d walked slow, but the corridor ran out eventually, and she picked a direction at random, entering a dim room that it took her a moment to recognise as the Gem chimera exhibit. Sketches, photographs, taxidermies, and other records and recreations showed examples of small creatures with embedded crystalline structures—an incredibly rare mutation thought to be caused by exposure to leftover seed materials from Homeworld’s occupation. For a long time, organics had confused chimerae for shapeshifted Gems, and Gems had mistaken the few specimens they encountered for curiously-tame monsters.

“Freak-of-nature solidarity fist bump,” she whispered, miming the gesture at a sculpted chimeric lemur with its paw raised.

With the syllables of her names still tumbling through her head, she made a cursory circuit of the room, giving the taxidermies a wide berth. She wasn’t sure what she found worst about them—the simple knowledge they’d once been alive and no longer were, their blank yet eerily-realistic glass eyes, or the dull, empty pseudomorphic Gemstones and shards studding their bodies.

“Macabre.” She said it again, _macabre_ _,_ rolling the R in the back of her throat. “Ha! Quadrilingual Fusion. I’m amazing.”

…And no longer speaking at an ignorable volume, from the looks the other patrons were giving her. She reddened and slipped out of the room, walking stiff-backed at a brisk pace.

* * *

She did tour the rest of the museum, in the end—well, Ruby’s favourite parts of it, anyway. She left as nameless as she’d entered. The building’s shadow stretched long in front of her as she walked down the limestone steps. It was a little after 5:30. She glanced over at the bench beneath the willow as she passed, remembering the flowers in bloom and the taste of berries. Her stomach growled, surprising her.

_Right. I missed lunch. …Bakehouse is still open ’til six on Saturdays, isn’t it?_

* * *

It was. Unfortunately, she hadn’t considered the fact that this was the workplace of two of her closest and only friends. _Ruby and Weiss’s_ friends. She stared through the window at Pyrrha’s ponytail as her classmate fiddled with the coffeemaker.

 _Why is she even_ working _today? I thought she and Jaune were planning to ask for the day off!_ Maybe that just hadn’t panned out? Neither of her components was well-acquainted with how part-time work, uh, worked.

She squared her shoulders, tossed her hair, and pushed open the door, jingling the bell overhead.

Pyrrha looked back at her and flashed a smile. “Hello! I’ll be with you in just a moment, ma’am.”

Fortunately, she was already looking away again, because the Fusion froze.

_Ma’am?_

Even _Weiss_ had never been _ma’am_ before.

Tentatively, she stepped up to the counter, looking over the pastry case as she had so many times before. She wondered if her taste buds were different now. She’d better get something both Ruby and Weiss would like. Or maybe there was some weird cancelling-out effect, and she should get something they’d _never_ eat…?

“Sorry about that.” Pyrrha turned back to the counter, dusting her hands off on her apron. “How can I help you?”

 _Pyrrha, it’s me!_ —a sentence she just managed to keep from flying out of her mouth, because what could she possibly say next? “Uh, yeah,” she stammered, floundering a little. “Um, can I get a, uh…”

A confection on the top shelf caught her eye. “You have charlottes now?”

“Yes, charlotte russe. Our baker needed a day off, so the owner made all our fresh stock personally. “The menu…changes a little when that happens.”

The charlottes were pretty little things the size of large muffins, small ladyfinger cookies forming a cup that held sweet custard, thinly-sliced strawberries on top. _Yes._

“I’ll take one of those,” she said.

“Coming right up! Are you going to eat here, or…?”

“No, I know you close soon.” She started rummaging through her purse for Weiss’s wallet. “Will it work to-go, though?”

Pyrrha held up a finger and ducked beneath the counter, re-emerging with a flimsy-looking plastic container. “Pint cups! The answer to nine out of ten problems in food service.” Her eyes darted down to Weiss’s purse, and her brow furrowed. Her gaze lingered briefly on the Fusion’s Gemstone on the way back to her face. “I’ll…just get this packaged for you.”

“Thanks.” She remembered just in time not to pull out Weiss’s matte-black monster of a credit card, handing over a prepaid one instead. As Pyrrha was ringing up her purchase, Ruby’s scroll chimed; the Fusion swapped it for her wallet and checked the message just as the scroll chimed again.

JAUNE 5:48

Ran into Coco and the others  
otw to the Gunmetal, u guys  
wanna join?

Fox swears by tonight’s band.  
No pressure, told them  
yesterday was rough

Excitement hit her first, then the uncertainty and anxiety. _This invite’s for Ruby, not me._ She didn’t even notice Pyrrha had yet to hand over her pastry.

Her scroll chimed a third time, and her heart skipped as she read the next message. _Oh. ‘You guys’._

PYRRHA 5:49

BH was short-staffed so I  
worked part of today, but  
it wasn’t too bad. I’ll be  
there!

She slowly looked up from her scroll to find Pyrrha holding her own, frowning at her, head cocked.

“…Ruby?” she asked hesitantly.

The Fusion smiled, or tried to; it came out as more of a toothy grimace. She waved her hand dramatically, like a magician revealing a vanishing act. “Surprise!” she exclaimed weakly.

* * *

“So, you’re Ruby,” Pyrrha said slowly, re-adjusting the tote bag over her shoulder as they walked, “but you’re also Weiss. At the same time. And _they_ have functionally ceased to exist, except as aspects of _your_ personality.”

“Temporarily,” she emphasised, again. “Based on how it works for other Fusions, they should both remember everything that I do once I un-Fuse.”

“And in the meantime, you’re…” Pyrrha gestured vaguely at her, head to toe.

“Taller, older-looking, and surprisingly chill.” She fidgeted a little with the rolled top of the bakery bag in her hand, thoughtful. “Ruby’s hyperactive and frankly, Weiss is neurotic. I can’t help thinking I should be a walking anxiety attack between the two of them.”

“Well…they complement each other well,” Pyrrha mused. “I suppose you’re proof they bring out the best in each other?”

The Fusion’s steps slowed, but didn’t stop, and she found herself smiling a little, almost bashful as she considered that. “The best in each other. I like that.”

“So what do I call you?” Pyrrha asked, inevitably.

“Oh—!” The Fusion snapped the paper bag open, pulling out the pint cup and the plastic spoon Pyrrha had thrown in at the last minute. She peeled off the lid and dug in. “I don’t know,” she admitted miserably through a mouthful of cake and custard. “But this is _delicious.”_

Pyrrha laughed. “I’ll be sure to tell Miss L. She loves a satisfied customer.”

“I keep tossing ideas around in my head, you know?” She swallowed before she spoke this time, faintly scandalised by her own breach of manners. “Waiting for the name that clicks. But it’s _hard._ I keep thinking my name should _mean_ something. But then I think about how Ruby’s Ruby just because Da—her dad liked the name. So maybe I should just pick a cool name from a baby book or something?”

“Is there any sort of guideline or—precedent for Fusion names?”

“Portmanteaus,” she said grimly. “But, I mean—Ruweiss? Weissby? _Reiss?”_ She popped another spoonful of charlotte into her mouth.

“Rice? Oh, of course.” Pyrrha frowned.

The Fusion cackled as a thought occurred to her. “Woobie,” she explained when Pyrrha raised an eyebrow. “W-B-Y _woobie.”_

“Oh dear.”

“Ahhh, it fits though! I am _condensed_ woobie. I’m just also my own emotional support structure. Sorry about dumping this all on you,” she added, abruptly self-conscious. “You’re the first person I’ve talked to since leaving the house, besides, you know, ‘one ticket please’ at the museum and I _may_ also have tried to reassure a statue that it was valid and not alone in this world.”

“What?”

“Look, Ruby’s quirks and Weiss’s social confidence make for one hell of a drug. Also I am _not_ certain I’m a hundred percent sane. There’s no way organic minds were built for Fusion.”

“Well, you _sound_ sane,” Pyrrha comforted her. “And you’re very nice so far.”

“I know, right!? Oh, no, that sounded arrogant. I mean, I haven’t felt the urge to say anything snide to anyone all day and for Weiss that’s—that’s unheard of!” She ate the last spoonful of pastry and tucked everything back into the bag with a little sigh. “Dear charlotte russe: you were delicious, and you will be missed. Love, me.”

Pyrrha muffled a low giggle behind her hand. The Fusion felt a little burst of happiness at that. _Oh! I guess I like making people laugh._

“What? It deserved a eulogy,” she defended herself. “And I knew it best.”

“Her, surely, with a name like Charlotte.”

“Don’t you anthropomorphise my food! Or…gynomorphise my food? Is that even a word?”

Rather than answering, Pyrrha was now eyeing her thoughtfully. “Russe.”

“Hm?”

“Russe,” Pyrrha repeated. “Ruweiss. Rueiss. Russe.”

The Fusion blinked at her, then looked down at the sadly-empty bakery bag. Naming herself after a cake? She wasn’t entirely sure what _russe_ actually meant; the origin of the dessert’s name was long lost. No one could even agree if _charlotte_ came from _Charlotte,_ and if so, which Charlotte.

But in a weird way…it fit. After all, she _was_ the result of a friendship forged through baked goods. It was short, easy to pronounce, carried no baggage or expectations. And it belonged to both of her components in equal measure.

“Russe,” she said, testing it out, nodding slowly. “Do I look like a Russe?”

“I have no idea what a Russe looks like,” Pyrrha confessed, fidgeting with one of the glass gems attached to her headband. “But if you’re Russe, I suppose you _are_ what a Russe looks like. So…maybe?”

“Huh.”

They walked most of a block in silence as she mulled that over.

“We’re almost to the Gunmetal now,” Pyrrha warned her in a gentle tone. “Am I telling Jaune I’m bringing a friend, or is ‘Ruby’ going to decline the invitation?”

She tilted her head back, looking up at the sky. It was almost exactly 24 hours since she—since half of her—had walked out of Forever Fall with Pyrrha and Jaune beside her. Ruby had been exhausted then, and neither she nor Weiss had slept well last night. But…

“It’ll be good to be with friends,” Russe decided, nodding.

* * *

And it was.

For the second time in less than an hour, Russe had to talk a friend—or five—through the basics of Fusion, because she was _not_ going to be able to pretend these people were strangers to her. It was probably for the best, anyway; lying about her identity felt like it would be a bad start to Russe’s life. There were questions, of course. _So_ many questions. And Jaune, oh, _Jaune_ looked like a deer in the headlights once he processed that his crush object and his surrogate eighth sister were currently the same too-old-for-him woman.

Though he and Pyrrha _did_ seem a little cosier than usual, so maybe Russe was being a little unfair in her assessment. As many memories as Weiss had of Jaune being a hormonal pest, Ruby had more of him being her goofy, good-hearted friend. Russe realised that she was going to have to spend time with him—with all of them—to start puzzling out her own feelings towards them, rather than just relying on the aggregate of her components’ emotions like some kind of psychological rating poll.

“Hey, Russe!”

Velvet was waving her towards the dance floor, a grin on her face. The most familiar with Ruby of Coco’s group, and definitely the one with the strongest reason to be uneasy about the ‘also I’m half-Schnee’ bombshell, but so far she’d been the most enthusiastic about welcoming the Fusion.

 _She’d know a thing or two about being excluded,_ pointed out the voice in the back of Russe’s head, the one that increasingly sounded like her own. _She knows it hurts._

Russe didn’t understand Ruby’s problem with dancing. Nor did she understand Weiss’s view of it—a skill to be mastered, a social tool to be used, a necessary proficiency to avoid the mockery of her peers.

 _How can you enjoy doing something you’re bad at?_ Pyrrha asked in Ruby’s memory, and Weiss agreed wholeheartedly.

 _The same way you enjoy doing something you’re good at,_ Russe knew. _Because it’s fun!_

She and Velvet moved freely to the rhythm, and Russe forgot to worry about who and what she was and what might be waiting beyond tomorrow. She laughed and took one of Yatsuhashi’s hands when he offered it, Velvet taking the other, and he twirled them both by turns as the three of them formed a barrier that made room in the corner for Fox to dance with Coco without worrying about the other dancers. Jaune and Pyrrha blocked the gap on the other side. Well, Pyrrha wasn’t so much dancing as swaying in place and trying not to double over laughing as Jaune went through a disco repertoire for her benefit—he was, technically, good at it, but that didn’t make it any less ridiculous.

“You’re making that one up!” she insisted.

“Nope!” Jaune informed her, his voice nasal but gleeful as he held his nose shut and undulated his body from side to side. “This one’s called the Scuba! Or the Dive? I don’t remember.”

“Oh my gods, Jaune, _stop,_ people are staring!”

* * *

“You didn’t have to get all our drinks by yourself, Coco!” Russe said, standing up to at least take hers and Velvet’s off the other girl’s hands.

“Uh, she didn’t,” Yatsu pointed out, holding the majority of their table’s order. “I went with her.”

“Oh, but if the rest of us went up to the bar with her we might steal some attention from _The One,”_ Velvet teased, grinning impishly. “So she _has_ to go alone. It’s for _love!”_

“Sounds like someone wants her ears tied together,” Coco sang, a toothy, plasticky smile directed at her best friend.

“B-but she didn’t go alone. I was right there.” Yatsuhashi looked around the table at them, but all attention was on Coco and Velvet. “Did everyone forget I exist? Am I invisible?”

“Sure looks like it to me,” Fox said breezily, then, “Put that middle finger down, you’re gonna drop something.”

“Don’t the bartenders here all have to be over twenty-one, though?” Pyrrha asked.

“In two years, five years’ difference’ll be _nothing,”_ Coco declared, setting down the rest of the drinks she was carrying and moving so Yatsuhashi could do the same. “Come on, I’m not dumb, I don’t expect to actually hook up with her. She’s cute, that’s all. No harm in looking.”

“And flirting,” Fox added.

“Fidgeting,” Yatsu submitted.

 _“Sighing,”_ Velvet breathed out dramatically, clapping a hand to her chest.

Coco put her hands together as if in prayer. “May you all rot in the lowest pits of hell, you ungrateful little shits. Shut up and drink your fake booze.”

“Thanks for the drinks, Coco,” Jaune said, leaning forward for his.

“Thanks for the civility,” Coco replied, half-falling into her chair. “It’s getting rarer around here.”

“We love you,” Fox called.

“In a way Amber never will. Sorry, sorry!” Velvet said immediately, waving her hands and laughing. “Too far, I know, not funny, I take it back!”

“Ehhh, little funny,” Yatsuhashi said, holding up his thumb and forefinger close together.

“If _this_ is love, I never want it from anyone else,” Coco groused, and Russe joined the others in laughing, taking a long gulp off her mocktail. She was thirstier than she’d realised. 

“So!”

A hand clapped down on Russe’s shoulder, making her jump. She looked up in surprise to find Yang’s violet eyes boring into her, the Ametrine’s other hand firmly planted on her hip.

“Were you gonna _tell_ me you existed, or was I just supposed to find out from a six-hour-old _text message?”_

“Hey, Yang,” Russe said, voice wavering a little. “Welcome to the party?”

“Scooch over, Bakehouse boy,” Yang ordered, grabbing a chair from the empty table behind her and pulling it forward.

“It’s Jaune.” Who had no real choice but to comply, since Yang was already trying to force the extra chair into the space he presently occupied. “I feel like you should know that by now.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She waved him off, plopping into her seat backwards and folding her arms atop the back. “I’m redrawing my whole family tree here, cut me some slack, Joan.”

He sighed and shook his head. “…doing it on purpose now…”

“Everyone, this is Yang,” said Russe, “whom you will witness I am taller than—”

“Hey! It only counts if you _stay_ Fused!”

“—and Yang, this is Yatsu, Coco, Velvet, and Fox.”

“Hi!” Yatsuhashi said cheerfully, a mischievous smile tugging at his mouth. “I’m taller than both of you!”

“Either of us,” Russe corrected under her breath.

 _“Yeah,_ you are,” Yang said, sounding a little stunned as she looked him up and down. “Holy crap, you’ve got almost half a foot on _Oz._ And _seriously?_ Why am I finding out about _this,”_ she gestured at Russe, “from _Ozpin?”_

“Why did it take you six hours to check your scroll?”

“Because there was a _Northern Front_ marathon and Tai declared movie theatre rules,” Yang said as if it were obvious. “What? Don’t judge me, it’s a good show and he’s the only person I know who watches it.”

“So, in other words, the only way to tell you about _this,”_ she mimicked Yang’s gesture, “myself was to psychically divine where you were and come to see you in person?”

“Oop,” Coco said under her breath, clearly relishing the new source of not-quite-drama.

Yang made a face. “Stop poking holes in my infallible logic, woman. I’m the injured party here!”

“In _fallible,”_ Russe repeated, blinking slowly as she took another drink. Yang rolled her eyes.

“Ugh, you’re being such a Weiss right now.”

“How did you even find me?”

Yang shrugged. “There’s like, one place Ruby hangs out after dark and Weiss has a curfew. It wasn’t exactly hard to guess where you’d be.”

Russe’s eyes went wide. “Oh, no, Weiss’s curfew!”

“Already taken care of.” She waved a hand airily. “Her butler’s gonna have some awkward questions for her probably, but he’s not expecting her home until tomorrow.”

Panic seized her, wild and icy. “Did anyone call my father?”

“You’re gonna have to be a little more specif—hey, hey, calm down,” Yang urged as Russe seized her purse, digging through it for Weiss’s scroll. “Okay, guessing you’re not talking about Tai.”

Russe breathed out a deep sigh of relief as she saw the lack of missed messages, pressing a hand to her chest as if that would quell the erratic beating of her heart. Yang popped a knee up onto her chair so she could lean forward, gently gripping Russe’s upper arms. “None of us told him, okay? He doesn’t have to know about you until Ruby and Weiss are ready for it. I promise.”

“Okay,” Russe whispered. “Okay.” As her panic receded, she became acutely, painfully aware that the other people at their table had not vanished during her near-meltdown. She flushed, skin prickling with discomfort.

“Uh,” she laughed awkwardly, shrugging Yang’s hands off and standing, “this has been great, guys, but I should probably get going. It’s late.” It wasn’t even eight o’ clock yet, but at least it was fully dark outside. That made it feel like less of an obvious lie.

“Yeah, of course.” Coco, at least, had the social grace to not only go along with it but also hold to her usual flippant tone, flicking her fingers in a dismissive, shooing wave. “Come around again sometime, mmkay?”

“It was nice meeting you, Russe,” Velvet said with an encouraging smile. “I’ll talk to Ruby in a couple days, yeah? FR3?”

“And we’ll see Weiss on Monday,” Pyrrha said, nudging Jaune. “Take care ’til then.”

“Yeah.” She swallowed. “Fox.”

He nodded in her direction. “Russe.”

“Later, Russe,” Jaune added, making a rather apologetic face.

“Later.”

“I’ll drive you home,” Yang said, springing out of her chair and offering a wave to the table at large, speed-walking for a few paces to catch up to the Fusion, who was nearly at the door. “Sooo,” she drawled, holding it open for her, “Russe, huh? Short and sweet.”

“You don’t have to come with me…”

“Only came here for you in the first place. Your friends seem cool, though. Think they’d mind an older woman hanging around once in awhile? I mean.” She laughed, elbowing Russe gently as they stepped into the chilly autumn evening. “I may not _be_ their age, but I look it more than you do!”

Russe thought she made some kind of noncommittal noise in reply, but couldn’t swear to it.

“Hey.” Yang caught her by the arm, startling her; the Ametrine didn’t comment on it, just gestured down the street towards a familiar black-and-yellow motorcycle.

“Oh. Right.”

* * *

Yang didn’t try to talk on the ride down to the ferry port; some conversations shouldn’t be held at shouting volume. Weiss didn’t have a ferry pass, but Ruby did, and that was enough to get the Fusion aboard. Once the ferry got moving, Russe swung herself off the back of the bike, heading for a bench set facing the water.

Yang pulled Bumblebee’s key from the ignition and followed her at a slow, lazy stroll, feigning interest in the starry sky and the dark waves beyond the hull. She peeked at Russe, who had started out looking at the water but was now staring at something only she could see at the point where deck met gunwale, strands of pale pink hair obscuring her features as the wind tugged at them. It was strange—Fusions generally had a very ‘if-you-squint’ kind of passing resemblance to their component Gems, but Yang could see distinct elements of both Ruby and Weiss in Russe’s face and her frame, making her all the easier to read.

“Qrow made it sound like you were taking this pretty well when I called him,” she said finally. “Seemed like you were doing okay back at the club, too. Did I mess that up for you? Showing up the way I did?”

Russe had come back to herself with a visible jolt when Yang started speaking, staring at her with wide eyes. She shook her head rapidly. “No, it’s—it’s fine. It’s not you. _I’m_ fine, really, I just…”

She ducked her head, scrubbing at her face with her hands, combing her hair back with her fingers. “Ruby has no idea how lucky she is, you know? To have people like you around her all the time. And Weiss, Weiss _is_ privilege. She’d never even felt _sticker-shock_ before today. They both have so much and they take it all for granted—and so do I, most of the time, except neither of them has what the other has and that means sometimes, instead of feeling like I have everything…”

“…it feels like you have nothing.”

Russe nodded and shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. “I—I could _feel_ myself breaking apart back there, when I thought—when _Weiss_ thought her father had found out about me. I was cold and alone and I had nothing. No wealth, no power, no one who’ll just _accept_ me for what I am even though it’s crazy and weird and impossible. No home. No _name.”_

“Would it really be the end of the world if Weiss’s dad _did_ find out about you?” Yang asked.

Russe scoffed. “Weiss’s dad is _Jacques Schnee,”_ she said, with all the scorn the combination of Weiss’s familiarity and Ruby’s safe distance could create. “I don’t know what he’d do, but it’d be _bad_. She’s _scared_ of him, and she’s so deep in denial about it that the only reason _I_ know is because I have Ruby’s memories to tell me the way Weiss feels isn’t normal! He’s like this… _shadow_ that hangs over her life, making her second-guess everything she says and does even when he’s nowhere around—for gods’ sake, Yang, she’s started feeling nervous around _Ozpin_ just ’cause how he’s been lately reminds her of how controlling her dad is!

“And Ruby…she’s just scared. Period. Yesterday she looked this manifest memory of her mom in the eye and promised to take care of everyone for her. She’s not ready for that!”

Yang sat down next to Russe and wrapped her arms around her, tight. “She shouldn’t have to be. That’s not her job. That’s her dad’s and Qrow’s and Ozpin’s and mine. I know we haven’t been doing a good job of it lately. I’m sorry.”

Russe shook her head, letting it fall against Yang’s shoulder. “There’ve been more important things…”

“There’s been more _urgent_ things. _Not_ more important.” Yang squeezed her gently. “We’ve had time to make sure Ruby was doing okay. We just _didn’t._ ’Least her dad doesn’t live in the same house, he’s got an excuse, but the rest of us don’t.”

“Peridot and Scapolite—”

“—have been out of reach for weeks. We can’t…” She closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. “We can’t worry about her all the time. We’re not getting anything done that way, and it’s hurting us to keep trying. We have to take care of ourselves if we want to help Scapolite and stop Peridot, or else…”

She shuddered as she remembered the quagmire of terror and despair and creeping self-loathing that Chrysoberyl had become in her final moments.

“…we’ll tear ourselves apart,” Russe finished quietly.

“Yeah.”

They sat there as the ferry continued to chug across the channel, the waves breaking against the bow and the rush of the wind both half-buried beneath the rumble of the engine. The moon was waning, half its intact surface in shadow, only a glint of light limning the visible shards.

“Want me to warp to Atlas and punch Weiss’s dad for you?” Yang offered.

Russe laughed in the slightly sickly way of someone on the knife’s edge between mirth and tears.

“It takes a few times before a new Fusion levels out. You’re still too used to being two separate people, so _their_ problems still feel like _yours._ It’ll get easier. Just take it slow.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever told me to take anything slow in my life.”

“Duh. I just met you.”

That laugh was a little healthier, so Yang let herself join in, releasing Russe and leaning back against cold metal.

Yang estimated they were a little over halfway across the channel when suddenly Russe was leaning against her again, her soft, deep breaths indicating the Fusion had fallen asleep.

_Fair enough._

Then Russe’s body shimmered, Gemstone gleaming, and Yang found herself with an armful of slumbering Weiss, Ruby’s sleeping form curled up against the other girl’s back.

_Aw, man._

Yang shook her head, digging out her scroll with the hand that wasn’t pinned between them and calling Taiyang.

“Hey, sorry to bug you. Could you meet me at the ferry port? I’ve got too many passengers for my bike. And you can finally meet the elusive Weiss,” she added in sing-song.

 _“Oh? Something happen?”_ He sounded more curious than worried—even Yang wouldn’t make light if something was wrong.

“Eh…tell you when we get there. It’s kind of a long story…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, stumbling upon the name Russe purely by accident: hey that could work  
> Also me, in an act of blatant self-sabotage: that’s. just the French word for ‘Russian’. good job.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed Ruby and Weiss being Alone Together, and also, in hindsight, probably the closest thing to the V2 school dance that we're getting. Next chapter: We find out where Blake ended up and what she's been doing for the last *checks notes* uh, month, and also meet up with a number of new-to-this-fic characters! We're coming up on the home stretch here; next chapter sets up the last few dominos in the chain, and everything after that is watching how they fall. Aw, look at me trying to build hype. Adorable.
> 
> As always, comments are very much appreciated, as is your continued interest & readership! See you next time!


	15. Distant Shore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scapolite takes refuge in Kuo Kuana. Actually, first Scapolite goes on the run in Kuo Kuana, and then she takes refuge there. Maybe she's not alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live! Hopefully everyone had a lovely Nondescript Winter Holiday, or as lovely of one as 2020 would permit. Sure has been an interesting 2021 so far. May we all henceforth live in disinteresting times.  
> Anyhow, welcome back to Blake. Notwithstanding the substantial cropping I had to do throughout to keep it manageable and more-or-less on-track, I actually rather like how this chapter came out, and I hope you all do as well!

“Record,” Scapolite said quietly, balancing the closed tome on her lap, “tell me everything you know about this place.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d made the request in the few days since she’d escaped Vale. She kept hoping to find something she’d missed. She _knew_ she was missing _something._ Too many things didn’t add up about her new sanctuary, this pocket of verdant land cradled by jagged mountains—from one valley to another, except this one, she could leave. If she wanted to struggle through the desert on the other side. Or play another round of warp roulette. Either way, there was no _point_ in leaving, because the Record _also_ didn’t have anything helpful for her in the ‘getting off-planet’ department. It had little more about the Faunus.

Remnant had gone from a world of two sapient species—as unlikely as that already was—to one of three; that much had become clear as she’d slipped through the alleys and shadows of Vale and found herself hiding not only from organics, but from her own kind. Yet based on her observations, the proportion of Faunus to humans was still roughly the same as it had been millennia ago: about one in four of Remnant’s thinking organics exhibited the characteristic non-human traits, and the ideal habitats of both species remained identical. In any given population centre, she should see one Faunus for every three humans, and three humans for every Faunus. She didn’t have a handle on what a normal proportion of Gems to organics looked like, but surely she should have seen at least _one_ by now. Here, though…

_All Faunus. Every single one._

She could see them passing through the streets from her rooftop perch, a loose crowd nearly as varied in colour and size as her own species. Horns, hooves, claws, additional ears, tails—she even saw a pair of _wings_ down there, brightly patterned like the birds nesting nearby. The only thing the Record had actually been able to tell her: she was on an island, south of the tropics. A _big_ island. It hadn’t even been able to tell her what the island was _called,_ or whether this—town? Village? She was unclear on nomenclature—had its own individual designation. Probably. Scapolite had observed enough organic societies to know unique personal designations were pretty universal, but _Diamonds,_ Remnans took the obsession to a new extreme.

Her eyes scoured the nearly-bare pages the Record had presented to her, but of course, the words hadn’t changed. They couldn’t, now that she was free. So much for having all the answers. Wasn’t it just her luck, ending up in one of the only places the Record had never learned about? She drew in a breath just to force it back out in a sharp sigh, mimicking an organic’s frustration signals. She’d discovered it was surprisingly cathartic.

Except when she did it wrong, like now, and the motion put strain on her damaged Gemstone, turning her sigh into a harsh whimper as she bent forward over her lap, wrapping an arm around her middle.

_Damn it!_

Slowly, she straightened up again, careful not to shift too much, and focused on the Record again. She clenched her jaw as she noticed the island’s information had been replaced, once again, by an overview of Haven’s medical facilities.

“Stop that,” she told it. “I’m not going. It’s the first place they’ll look for me.”

“For someone on the run, you’ve been spending a lot of time in one place,” said a voice from behind her.

Scapolite slammed the Record closed, surging to her feet as she tucked the tome under an arm. Reflexively she tried to summon her weapon, biting back a wince as her Gemstone throbbed in response.

“Whoa.” The newcomer held up her hands, taking a step back towards the air-con vent. She didn’t look nervous, though, raising her eyebrows as she looked Scapolite over. “Relax. You’ve just been sitting up here, right? Talking to a book; very normal, by the way, definitely no questions about that.”

“You people talk to your scrolls all the time,” Scapolite shot back. “They can hear you. My book can hear me. Is there a problem with that?”

It was hard to say what emotions exactly crossed the organic’s face as she processed that. “Maybe avoid the phrase ‘you people’ in future? Especially considering where we are.” Yet amusement was what ultimately won out, a smile tugging at her lips. “Something about how you say it makes it sound more like a ‘kids these days’ kinda thing, though. I guess you’re old enough to get away with that, even if you look my age.”

Did she? This was…an adolescent, Scapolite concluded, her body not quite grown into her proper proportions, her pulled-back hair a dark auburn, her face free of even the smallest of the wrinkles that typically marked organics as they aged. She had spots though, little brown ones across her cheeks and down her limbs. What she didn’t have, as far as Scapolite could see, was a Faunus trait. So, in other words, a juvenile human had managed to sneak up on her, a trained and innately-gifted spy of nearly five thousand years. More than double that, if you counted her time in the Record.

“How long have you been watching me?” Scapolite demanded.

“Actively? Two days. Noticed you up here three days running before that.” The organic shrugged, lowering her hands.

“That’s impossible. I would have spotted you before now.”

“Mmm…” She tilted her head, smirking. “Would you, though?”

And then Scapolite was looking at the vent, which was looking right back at her with the organic’s blue-grey eyes.

“What.”

“Chameleon Faunus.” In a flash, the organic was back to normal. “Surprise.”

“Surprise,” Scapolite echoed.

“Ilia Amitola,” the Faunus said. “I’m a volunteer with the Kuo Kuana watch. And, I’m sorry, but the way you’re acting and the fact that no one recognises your description…it’s a little worrying, and the others agree. Would you mind coming with me to clear some things up?”

“I would, actually,” Scapolite said. Before Ilia could respond, the Gem clenched her jaw tight against the pain and cloaked. Quickly, she crouched down and slipped her body over the side of the roof, holding onto the edge with one hand as the other clutched the Record tight.

“Oh, seri—stay where you are and reveal yourself immediately!” Ilia ordered.

There was a drainpipe nearby. Scapolite swung her weight towards it, hooking a knee around it awkwardly. She braced her other foot against it, doing her best to squeeze the pipe between the two points of contact.

_Clock’s ticking._

Not giving herself time to second-guess, she let go of the roof, her head swinging down towards the ground alarmingly, her poor grip on the drainpipe slipping down at least a foot by the time she managed to get her fingers around it. Upside-down, she inched her way down the pipe as quickly as she dared, careful not to make a sound despite the pain. The contortion and the odd angle shouldn’t have been much of a problem, but her Gemstone didn’t like this position one bit. Letting go once she reached the ground was something of a trick, too. She had to take all her weight onto her hand, disentangling her legs and letting herself pivot unsteadily until her toes hit the street. It wasn’t a terribly graceful procedure, but she managed to get up and moving quickly enough, darting into the crowd of the marketplace in the last few moments before she became visible again.

_Almost didn’t make it. My cloaking time’s even shorter than before._

She hoped her ploy had worked, because it had landed her in the exact position she’d been trying to avoid since she’d fled the Emerald Forest: hemmed in by a crowd of organics with no escape. Fortunately no one noticed her appearance, or at least that she’d appeared out of midair.

“I’m sorry… Excuse me… Pardon…”

Scapolite didn’t push her way through the crowd, just let it carry her onwards without disrupting it. She was counting on the theory that she’d be hard to spot from above, just one more mass of black hair among a group where that colour was common. As long as she could keep her head down…

_The bow!_

She reached up quickly and yanked it free of her hair, stuffing the ribbon into one of the inner pockets of her coat. Hopefully she’d get an opportunity to duck down a side alley soon, or into one of the handful of indoor shops. It’d be nice to be able to put the Record back in its proper place, and even nicer to have both her hands free. Soon enough, she spotted her chance, following in the wake of a middle-aged man with curling horns as he veered off from the crowd towards an open doorway. Scapolite could see bolts of cloth and bobbins of thread as she leaned around him. A textile shop. Good camouflage for the purple-complected.

Just in case, though, she cloaked briefly as she entered behind her unwitting shield, darting off behind a rack laden with richly-patterned cotton before she let herself waver back into the visible spectrum. Finally, a bit of breathing room, as the Faunus around her might say. Scapolite reached the Record behind her and blindly adjusted her belt in the way that was second-nature now, latching the tome securely into place.

“Can I help you find anything, ma’am?”

Well, at least this time she didn’t jump. It was still galling that someone had managed to sneak up on her _twice_ today. She turned around to see a man with a banded tail and black markings around his eyes. He’d been smiling at first, but as she faced him fully she saw the expression fade into flat neutrality, his arms crossing over his shopkeeper’s apron. Scapolite shot a wary glance at the scissors she could see poking out of his apron pocket.

“Ma’am?” he prompted, rather shortly.

“I’m…just looking right now, sorry,” Scapolite said, shrinking back a little.

He frowned. “I see.”

“Thank you for asking…?”

“I’m surprised to see someone like you shopping here at all. I thought you didn’t need our goods.” His emphasis was strange, like—like an amateur trying to deliver a code phrase, leaning too hard on the important words. _Surprised. Like you. Our goods._ Scapolite’s brow furrowed briefly before she forced herself to relax, crossing her own arms in a mirror of his posture.

“If your goods are quality,” she said carefully, “is it that surprising that someone like me would be interested?”

It was the shopkeeper’s turn to look confused, his tail swishing briefly. Then his eyes narrowed. “Just what are you implying?”

Scapolite froze. “Uh…” _I may have misjudged this situation._

“Cenere, stop that,” a woman’s voice scolded, causing the shopkeeper to startle. “Or I’ll tell Ardie you’ve been picking fights with customers.”

Cenere flushed. “I, uh—”

He shuffled to the left of the cramped makeshift aisle as Scapolite’s unsolcited ally swept around the corner of the rack, raising an eyebrow at him and casting an assessing gaze over the Gem. The ears atop the woman’s head twitched.

“Ah, that’s how it is.” The woman sighed, adjusting the broad basket hooked over her elbow. “Chen, you’re better than that. What would your mother say?”

Somehow, Cenere’s cheeks got even darker. He mumbled something at the ground.

“I-it’s okay.” Scapolite started backing away. “I don’t want any trouble. I was just leaving. I’m sorry for intruding.”

“Dear, you’re not intruding; this is a shop, and Chen here is _supposed_ to be a businessman.” She smacked his arm lightly with the back of her hand. “And he’s very sorry for making one of his valued customers feel unwelcome.”

“Yes’m. Very sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Scapolite said again. “Anyway, I should get going. Thank you for your help.”

She darted around the other side of the rack and walked briskly towards the door, bowing her head and angling her hand over her face as if shielding her eyes from the sun. She only made it a little way down the street before she saw something that forced her to take shelter between a fruit stall and a barbeque, huddling in the shadows: Ilia was on the rooftops on the opposite side, scanning the crowd below as she moved slowly along. For such a small organic, she made a credible predator, and a competent one; although Scapolite had tried to take precautions against surveillance from above, she’d honestly expected Ilia to make the amateur mistake of jumping down after her and trying to follow her on foot.

_Why does it always feel like the other side is better at their jobs? Is it just because I don’t get to see all the times they screw up?_

“You seem lost.”

Scapolite swore, wheeling around. “Could you all just stop with that!?”

She found herself looking into the wide eyes of the cat-eared woman from the textile shop. Yellow eyes. Scapolite hadn’t seen an organic with yellow eyes before.

The woman’s shocked demeanour didn’t change a bit as she spoke. “Rough day?”

“I’ve. Had better,” Scapolite managed.

That seemed to be the cue for the woman to start relaxing, and she cocked her head curiously, cat ears twitching up from where they’d been flat against her head. “You’re hiding from someone. Aren’t you?”

“Of course not. I don’t have any reason to.”

“Well, you’re going to have a hard time going unnoticed. Gems aren’t exactly common around here. And as you’ve learned by now, we aren’t always the most welcoming community.”

Scapolite stood there blinking at her for a long moment while she pieced it together. “The shopkeeper—he was acting like that because I’m a Gem?”

“Hmm.” The woman frowned faintly. “You don’t spend much time in organic society, do you?”

“I’ve…” Scapolite hesitated. “I’ve been in stasis for awhile.” An organic shouldn’t find that overly suspicious. Scapolite herself had witnessed stasis used to facilitate mass transport or to serve as a stopgap measure to hold a valuable Gem together until they could be patched.

“Things have changed?” the woman asked sympathetically.

“Just a bit.”

“Oh, dear, you must be completely overwhelmed.” She seemed to reach some kind of decision, holding out her hand. “I’m Kali Belladonna. My husband and I live close by. Would you like to go back with me? Take a break from the crowds?”

She glanced briefly over Scapolite’s shoulder. “And from whatever’s following you? Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

“You’re…inviting me to your home?”

Kali smiled, retracting her hand; she didn’t seem offended that Scapolite hadn’t followed up on whatever she’d been cueing. “Of course. We can have tea. And if you feel the need to repay me, you can keep me company while I sew.” She patted the slim rolls of cloth laying in her basket. “Ghira always seems to be too busy lately.”

“I…” Really needed to get out of sight? Could use a few minutes without being bombarded by constant noise? Had no polite way to turn down an invitation that let her achieve both of those things anyway? “Thank you. I would love to…have tea.”

“Great!” Kali immediately linked their arms together, leading her down the street behind the stalls. No one seemed to mind her doing this, even though there was clearly an unwritten rule about staying in the main part of the street. “Oh, I’m sorry, I should have asked sooner. What’s your name?”

Name?

Oh hell, she was posing as a Rebel. Rebels had names. She needed a _name._ Right now, before the pause grew obvious.

“Blake,” she said abruptly, realising too late why it had sprung immediately to mind. Inwardly, she groaned. “My name’s Blake.”

_Damn it, Yang._

* * *

Kali’s house was at the end of its own little road, and it was notably larger than any of the other houses Scapolite had seen in her time in Kuo Kuana. Based on her understanding of how these things worked, that should mean she was notably wealthier than most of its people, too. Which raised the odds of her being important. Or the other person she’d mentioned lived here—her ‘husband’?

 _Maybe it’s a family role._ If families were a little like units, like Yang had said, there must be specific positions and functions for family members, right? She supposed she’d be finding out soon, as the tea-tray Kali carried into her airy little sitting-room had three cups on it. Scapolite stood by rather awkwardly as her host laid the tray on the low table which was the focus of the room. Kali folded herself elegantly onto one of the seating cushions set around it.

“You can step on the tatami, you know,” she said, hiding a smile. “I know it might not look like it, but it’s still part of the floor. And how else are you going to come sit down?”

Hesitantly, Scapolite stepped onto the woven mats. They gave slightly underfoot, more like soft earth than any floor she’d ever walked on, and she picked her way over to the table with a slow, flat-footed gait. She lowered herself gingerly onto a cushion, mimicking Kali’s posture as best she could while wearing her boots, thankful her host had been both understanding and uncurious about them. Kali had instantly accepted that ‘Blake’ couldn’t go far enough from her boots to make it worth removing them at the door, wholly unaware that an intact Gem would be able to banish and re-manifest them with ease. Besides, this way Scapolite was ready to run at a moment’s notice.

_It probably helps that my Gemstone doesn’t catch the light well. It’s hard to see the crack if you aren’t looking for it._

“Ghira should be in shortly,” Kali said, setting one of the little bowl-shaped cups in front of Scapolite and pouring an aromatic stream of tea into it. “He’s just had a surprise visitor of his own. Their meeting shouldn’t take long.”

“Of course.”

“No need to stand on ceremony; he’d feel bad for making us wait.” There was a dish of small, round…something that Kali nudged towards Scapolite, plucking one of the objects off for herself. “Have an _ellurundai_ —sesame cake. Or, er, _ondo-ondo?_ It’s a family recipe.”

Scapolite filed that away in the pocket of her mind labelled _Family?_ and reached out, taking a sesame cake and turning it to examine it better. It was a pleasing golden colour, entirely coated in small seeds of varying shades.

“Well, technically it’s made of rice flour,” Kali said, glancing between Scapolite and the sweet in her hand. “But the sesame’s a much stronger flavour.”

 _That look on her face. She’s nervous. Nothing’s happened, though. Am I breaking an organic rule by looking at the food?_ Hastily, Scapolite bit into the little ball as Kali had, bracing herself. She hadn’t eaten in millennia, and she’d never liked it then. This was a bad idea—

“This is good!” she said, then closed her eyes in mortification at the obvious surprise in her voice.

“I’m glad you like it.” And she was, too; when Scapolite opened her eyes, Kali was beaming like the Diamonds Themselves had praised her.

 _Easily pleased. I can use that._ She felt a strange pang that wasn’t related to her Gemstone. _Did I mess up the stomach again?_ Scapolite actually had an approximation of one, unlike most Gems she knew of; it was a recon trick she’d learned from an old colleague. If you set it up right, your projection could essentially burn any matter you consumed and convert it to energy. Handy for regions where sunlight was scarce or when circumstances called for a nocturnal schedule. It had taken her a few tries to get it right—but this didn’t feel the same as getting it wrong.

She shook it off. _Doesn’t matter._ “I’ve never had these before. They’re very nice.” She reached for her cup of tea, feeling cautiously hopeful as she raised it to her lips. If the sesame cakes had been good, then maybe this would be too?

 _Oh, yes._ “The tea’s delicious, too.”

“It’s an oolong. I didn’t think about it—I’m happy you like it, since it’s not everyone’s cup of—”

Kali clamped her mouth shut, putting a hand over her lips and closing her eyes. Her cat ears flattened atop her head as she slowly shook it. “Oh dear,” she sighed, an edge of laughter on her voice. Scapolite didn’t get it, but she gave a soft chuckle of her own, which made Kali drop her hand and give her a rueful, lopsided smile.

“I promise that wasn’t on purpose,” she said. “If you think my puns are bad, you should see the slapstick routine I get up to in the kitchen sometimes.”

“She’s exaggerating,” came a deep voice from the doorway. Scapolite looked up and felt her nerves erupt all over again as she laid eyes on the largest organic she’d ever seen—the largest _anyone_ she’d ever seen, since she’d never met a Diamond. He had to duck his head slightly just to enter the room. “Kali’s only clumsy when she’s distracted. About ninety percent of all kitchen accidents in this house are actually my fault.”

“I was trying to be kind, dear,” Kali said, stretching an arm up towards him. He took her hand and squeezed it gently, sitting down beside her. “This is my husband, Ghira. Ghira, this is Blake. We met while I was out shopping.”

Scapolite suppressed a wince. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Hm. Blake, huh?” His tone remained friendly, but she noticed he didn’t return the sentiment. “Haven’t seen you around before. You must be new here.”

Kali elbowed him, eyeing him sidelong as she sipped her tea.

“But you’re very welcome,” Ghira added quickly, snatching up a cake and popping it into his mouth.

“Don’t let him put you off. He’s naturally suspicious.” Kali lowered her teacup. “It’s been known to put a crimp in our social life.”

Ghira looked like he might want to protest that, but he was still chewing.

“Blake and I ran into each other at Maschera’s—Ardelia’s place, the textile shop? She’s passed on a lot of the day-to-day work to her son now. Isn’t he White Fang?”

Ghira nodded, finally swallowing. “Cenere Maschera? Not our most active member, but he’s on the rolls.”

Kali hummed. “Well, I think he’s spending a bit more time listening to Sienna than you lately. He didn’t have many kind things to say about our guest, and I know he didn’t get that way of thinking from his parents.”

“And what were the _un_ kind things?” Ghira looked at Scapolite, who found herself instinctively leaning back a little.

“I wouldn’t say there was any real…unkindness,” she said. Cenere had put her on edge, but she chalked that up more to her own wariness than anything he’d said or done.

“There wasn’t anything overt,” Kali agreed. “But he made it clear he didn’t think she should be in his shop.”

 _I shouldn’t have been. I was there under false pretenses._ Not that she could _say_ that, of course—but… “I _am_ a Gem,” she pointed out. “I don’t need cloth.”

“That doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to buy it,” said Kali.

Didn’t it? Why should she be allowed to take something she didn’t need, even if she exchanged currency for it? Everything was made to serve a purpose. The cloth’s purpose was to be used in manufacturing items she didn’t require for her own purpose. It would be entirely frivolous. Like a being who didn’t need to eat sitting down to tea and cake.

 _This is for reconnaissance. I’m blending in,_ she told herself uneasily.

Ghira was sighing quietly, rubbing at his forehead. “Agh, this again. You know I can’t erase a resentment that’s older than I am, Kali.”

“Resentment?” Scapolite asked, drawing their attention back to her. She was ready for it this time. “I’m sorry, I—I’m even newer to this than you think.”

“That’s right, you said you’d been in stasis for awhile.” Kali tilted her head. “Not since before Liberation though, right?”

The Record had mentioned a ‘setting-loose’ or ‘breaking-away’ event in conjunction with the Faunus. “That was about two hundred years ago, right? Or a bit more?” Around the same time that new information pouring into the Record had slowed to a trickle—the abandonment of Beacon and the erecting of the field around it, if Scapolite had to guess.

“A hundred and eighty-two,” Ghira corrected.

Well. Time for the detail that would either break her cover completely, or render it all but ironclad. “Actually, I’ve been gone a lot longer than that.” She shifted in discomfort she didn’t have to feign. “More than five thousand years longer.”

In another situation, the identical expressions of shock on Kali’s face and her husband’s woud have been comical.

“You—you’ve been in stasis since the _Gem War?”_ Kali squeaked.

“I didn’t even know the Rebellion had won until I got out.”

“Oh gods…”

“Why were you left like that for so long?” Ghira wanted to know.

This was where she needed to pick her words carefully. Lie as little as possible, so that the truth couldn’t slip out later. “I was damaged during a raid. The Rebels who found and secured my Gemstone were shattered before anyone else could find out what had happened to me.” Surely no one would leave a resource as valuable as the Record to gather dust, if they knew it existed. “Someone found me and let me out a few weeks ago. I’ve been travelling ever since. Trying to catch up on everything I’ve missed.”

“Well, it’s…a good thing you have forever to do that,” Ghira said heavily, shaking his head. “Five thousand years…”

“You said you were damaged? But you got treatment, right?” Kali asked, eyes wide with concern. That look felt like a punch to the gut, complete with an incriminating twinge from her Gemstone.

“Of course, right away. Though it wasn’t a perfect fix. I was in pretty rough shape,” she added, lest one of them look too close and manage to see the crack after all. And then, because details almost always helped, “The Gems up at Haven were appalled. You’d think it was my fault I’d been bubbled for so long.”

She barely managed ‘bubbled’ with a straight face, having chosen the word on a whim. Ruby and Yang had both said it, so she was betting it was Rebellion argot. Anything to sell the story. She masked her awkwardness with a small, wry smile, the sort that invited listeners to think themselves in on the gripe: _Medics, am I right? Yeah, you get it._ Her little ploys seemed to work; Kali’s worried expression had already begun to shift to sympathy, now tinged with gentle humour, while Ghira’s lingering suspicion had entirely vanished in favour of something akin to sorrow. Almost like he was grieving her lost time.

That strange twisting feeling in her gut was back. _I probably shouldn’t eat any more._

“Well,” Ghira said again. “Especially since you _can’t_ have been part of his problem, allow me to apologise on Cenere’s behalf—and in advance for anyone else who gets their back up about you while you’re here.”

“What _is_ the problem, though? That I’m a Gem, right? I thought Gems had more or less integrated with organics since the war ended.” _Some more literally than others,_ she reflected, thinking of Ruby.

“More or less,” Ghira echoed. “And that’s part of the problem. _Organics_ —that’s an awfully broad generalisation, and far too many Gems make it and never think twice about it again.”

“If one were to put it delicately,” Kali said, “one could say human-Faunus relations are somewhat fraught.”

“Historically, humans—to make a generalisation of my own—have treated Faunus more as resources than people. Around the time you would have been active, we were considered property. We didn’t live for ourselves. We were just _used,_ by humans and for humans.”

“Like a caste system,” Scapolite said with a nod; this was familiar territory. Ghira grimaced.

“With Faunus always and only at the very bottom, serving the every whim of those above us.”

 _Is that wrong?_ Not something she got the sense she should say aloud, given how solemn her hosts looked. Besides, ‘Blake’ was a Rebel. Any sort of caste system was surely anathema to her. She would be outraged, attempting to grasp the scope of what Ghira was talking about, searching for ways to relate their experience to her own. _Serving every whim…_ maybe she could start there. “So Faunus were organic society’s—er, human?—human society’s Pearls,” she said, testing the waters.

“What is a Pearl?” Kali asked, and Scapolite had to bite back the urge to groan; of course, Rebel Pearls wouldn’t advertise their true nature, if they were even still aware of what they were meant to be. Conventional wisdom held that parting a Pearl from its master without immediately assigning them to another drove them insane. The unnatural aggression Black Pearl had shown her seemed to corroborate that.

“Pearls are servants. Purpose-made for a Gem of higher caste. They’re frequently given as rewards for notable service.”

“Given.” Kali paled. “And owned?”

Hesitantly, she nodded. _She looks horrified, so…I guess I’m on the right track._ Scapolite thought she could _almost_ imagine Kali as a Pearl, pretty and pleasant and eager to please—but then she remembered how the Faunus woman had reprimanded Cenere, how easily she’d swept Scapolite along in her wake, the sharp look she’d given Ghira when he’d joined them. Behaviours that would have seen her sent back to her Reef for a systems reset. She took a long sip of tea, suddenly unable to meet Kali’s eyes.

Ghira frowned. “Well, _that’s_ certainly something to think about. Faunus slaves were treated more as tools than trophies, for the most part, but slavery is slavery no matter how you dress it up.” His frown deepened. “Of course, _certain_ people still act as if Faunus are tools to be used and thrown away…”

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “But what does this have to do with Gems?”

“The sheer devastation caused by the Gem War broke down the existing social order, and the Rebellion’s centrality to the rebuilding effort kept it off-balance. From then on, Faunus slavery ceased to be universal—but it never _entirely_ went away. In some places, conditions improved over time. In others…” Ghira shifted so that he could lean back a little from the table, his tiny teacup held delicately between his fingertips. She could see the tea inside swirling as he gestured. “Well, Mistral has its farms, and Atlas—Mantle, as it was—has its mines. Gruelling work, _dangerous_ work, and plenty of people willing to turn a blind eye to terrible wrongs if it meant they didn’t have to put their own lives on the line. And a few more willing to turn their backs on the whole problem because it wasn’t _their_ problem. Gems.”

“I see.”

“Do you?” There was nothing aggressive or even challenging to Ghira’s tone. He just sounded tired. “Those with power have a responsibility to those without. Now, Gems have never participated in oppressing Faunus or condoned that oppression, but they’ve also seldom acted or even _spoken_ on our behalf. A lone Gem aiding our cause, or the Hunt shielding individual Faunus from persecution—you hear about that sort of thing now and then, but that’s as far as it goes. Good deeds, no doubt, but they represent a lukewarm effort at best from people who once went to war on a planetary scale for their _own_ rights.”

Scapolite thought she understood where this was going. “So the offense is…complicity through inaction?”

 _“_ That’s about the sum of it.” He set his cup down, reaching for another sesame cake and breaking it apart. “Now, mind you, there’s another line of thought that says while Gems as individuals have power, Gem _kind_ isn’t as powerful as the first argument assumes. Your population is miniscule, scattered, and divided in purpose, and our tech has been catching up to yours at an exponential rate—in other words, your power peaked during post-War reconstruction and has been on the decline ever since, and whatever you managed to hold onto hinged on humanity’s goodwill. With the Hunt disbanded before the Liberation Wars even began, Gemkind lost most of its remaining social and political capital and became even less a unified people than ever before. The last of their own self-professed greatest strength was gone.”

The Rose Rebellion had found a lost cause they _weren’t_ willing to throw themselves behind? They’d turn against their own _creators,_ but _humanity,_ now _that_ was too big a fight? Scapolite found herself oddly offended on behalf of the Faunus. “I’m guessing they didn’t step up _during_ the Liberation Wars, either.”

Ghira shook his head. _“That_ at least is built into law. Gems can’t interfere in our wars. There were rumours at the time, apparently, that some of the old Rebellion leadership turned up in Mantle when it was all over and pressured them into making some of the greater concessions from the final version of the treaty, but I’ve never seen anything to corroborate that. I suppose it’s _possible_ they somehow strong-armed Mantle’s government—maybe there were a few too many Huntsmen who took offense to their order being assimilated into the Mantelian war machine, out of pride if nothing else—but I doubt we’ll ever really know.”

The table was quiet for a moment.

“Well. That conversation certainly took a grim turn,” Kali said lightly, lifting the teapot. “Who needs a refill?”

* * *

Kali steered the conversation towards lighter topics after that. Still, Scapolite couldn’t deny her own engagement, and she’d already explained away her ignorance so neither of them were suspicious when she had to ask questions to keep up with them. Somewhere along the way, she realised she’d completely lost track of time. The sun was getting low, the tea was gone, and Kali was unapologetically tipping the crumbs and sesame seeds off the serving plate and into her palm, knocking them back like a handful of pills.

“What?” she asked defensively when Ghira raised his eyebrows at her. “If I hadn’t done it, you would have, and you’d be picking cake debris out of your beard for the rest of the night.”

“Cake debris.”

“Cake debris.” She turned to Scapolite. “Do you have anywhere to stay, dear? If you don’t, you can stay with us for a while. I’d say we have enough spare rooms. And we have a library you could use to help get yourself up to speed.”

“And an Internet connection,” Ghira added, “which might be more useful for most things.”

“It _crawls,_ though,” Kali said. “Islander problems.”

“Spoken like a mainlander,” Ghira muttered.

It took Scapolite a second to track back and understand. “You’d really let me stay?”

“I’ve noticed Gems don’t tend to pay for what they don’t need,” Kali said, “so I’m guessing you aren’t renting a room anywhere.”

Scapolite shook her head. “But like you said, I don’t need—”

“It’s probably worth mentioning we’re supposed to get some heavy rain early tomorrow morning,” Ghira said, smiling.

“…I accept your hospitality,” Scapolite said meekly.

“How are you on fish?” Kali asked, standing up and brushing her skirt off. “Wondering if I’m making dinner for two or three.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had fish. B-but I don’t—”

“—need to eat. But do you _want_ to? If you’re that worried about expense or waste, I can make you up a small portion just to taste it, but I promise we can afford it.”

“I wouldn’t mind trying a little,” she admitted, feeling the same unfamiliar rushing sensation as she had when Yang had offered to teach her _family._

“Then it’s settled,” Kali said briskly. “Dear, would you mind helping Blake set up a guest room? And then I’ll need you to help me in the kitchen so I can duck into my sewing room sooner. I haven’t even started any of the preliminary work on Wyatt’s commission and he’s a good client, so I’m going to be short on time the next few days.”

“Anyone who tells you I’m the head of this household is lying or misinformed,” Ghira said in a low tone as he and Scapolite left the sitting room. “I might have the fancier title between the two of us, but Kali is the Great Organiser. Keeps the house running, on a good month she pulls down as much as I do, and she’s been known to pinch-hit as my paralegal from time to time.”

“Paralegal?” _Pinch-hit_ was a bit shaky as well, but she could guess it from context. “Legal, as in…”

“Oh. _Technically,_ I’m a lawyer. Never got around to setting up a firm, though—fell in with the White Fang, fell in love with one of them, and it turns out civil rights activism is a slippery slope.” He laughed, a little rueful. “Wouldn’t change any of it, though. The Fang does important work. I’m proud to be able to offer my expertise to the cause. Every so often, I end up litigating on the organisation’s behalf or stepping in to defend members, and Kali graciously helps me with the workload.”

“The White Fang, huh. I’ve heard of you.”

“Mm, that could be good or bad. Our methods are peaceful, but protests have a knack for turning ugly in some parts of the world, and the blame has a funny way of falling at our feet whether it belongs there or not.”

“I was in Vale. Nothing I heard sounded too worried.”

“Not much fazes Valeans. They see too many strange things per day. Here we are.” Ghira stepped past her and slid one of the doors open, gesturing for her to enter. A small mattress lay on a boxy, slatted wooden frame at the centre of the room, set against the back wall. A little writing desk and stool sat beneath a window with a paper shade. Ghira pointed at a chest by the opposite wall. “There’s a replacement cover and two weights of shikibuton in the clothing chest—though, you…probably don’t sleep, do you?”

Scapolite shook her head.

Ghira chuckled softly, embarrassed. “Well, it’ll be something soft to sit on, at least. Feel free to bring any books from the library into here if you want a change of scenery. Actually, since you don’t need to set up the futon, would you like me to show you the library now?”

She perked up a little at that. “If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate that.”

“Of course. Come on, it’s in the other wing.”

He led her back down the hall in the direction they’d come, past the sitting room, across the foyer. “There’s a door connecting the library to my study,” he said. “A solid one, since we have to be a little more careful with climate control to preserve the books. Kuo Kuana only has two real seasons: hot and damp, and slightly chilly and damp. Point is, I have some more books in my study, reference texts I use for work. I don’t know if any of them will be of interest to you, but if you ever want to take a look, just knock and come on through.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“And this is the place.” Ghira stopped in front of a heavy wooden Central-style door, turning the knob and pushing it open. “After you.”

The library’s architecture and décor matched the airy, open feel of the rest of the house. There were two key differences, besides the style of door: first was the furniture, sturdy chairs and tall tables set in various arrangements around the room. The second was the ceiling. Even higher than the lofty hallways, the library stretched up to the second storey, a narrow walkway accessible by ladder marking the halfway point of the shelves which lined the walls from top to bottom. There were windows set in the wall opposite the door, but aside from the glass panes themselves, every inch of the walls were covered with books.

 _“Oh,”_ she breathed.

“It’s a little humbling, isn’t it? Seeing that much knowledge spread out in front of you. I know there’s more efficient ways of collecting information now, but there’s something about a well-stocked library. That boxy thing over there is an old computer of mine, though; feel free to use it, there’s no password.” To her surprise, Scapolite felt Ghira’s briefly pat her upper back before the man pulled away, smiling when she glanced up at him. He turned to leave, but then he paused, looking back. “Oh, and Blake?”

“Yes?”

“The next time one of the watch volunteers wants a word, at least _try_ to talk it out? You gave Ilia the scare of her life earlier.”

Scapoite froze, connecting the dots. “Your ‘surprise visitor’.”

Ghira nodded. “I’m not just _part_ of the White Fang anymore. I’m its current leader. Ilia doesn’t officially answer to me, but she’s a member. She was worried.”

“About what a Gem might be doing in Kuo Kuana?”

“About what anyone skulking around on rooftops while trying not to be seen might be doing in Kuo Kuana. And about what might have happened to someone who jumped _off_ a rooftop.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “I’ll make sure she and the rest of the watch know you aren’t up to anything they need to concern themselves with—and that you didn’t hurt yourself running from them.”

Ilia had been worried _for_ her?

She realised she’d been silent for too long and shook herself. “Thank you. I’ll try not to give anyone anything to worry about from now on.”

“I appreciate that.” Still, he hesitated. “I don’t know what it is you’re running from, Blake, and it’s none of my business, as long as it’s not going to bring trouble down on this island. Is it?”

Was it? Part of the Rose Rebellion’s mission statement had been the preservation of organic life, so she doubted they’d harm anyone to get to her. And the Authority would obliterate everyone regardless of her presence. “No,” she said dully, not meeting his eyes. “No one’s in danger because I’m here.” _But you’re all doomed anyway. You, or your descendants._

Ghira nodded again, slowly this time, thoughtful. “That’s all I need to know. Kali and I will come get you when it’s time to eat, alright? In the meantime, I’ll leave you to get acquainted.”

He shut the door softly behind him.

* * *

A passing acquaintance was all she had time to form before dinner was ready. The meal and friendly conversation lifted her spirits more than she’d expected, neither Faunus giving any sign her welcome was rescinded or even half-hearted. Once dinner was over she returned to the library, running her fingers over the spines of books as she walked slowly across the room, drawing to a stop in front of the window. It was dark outside, now, and her own reflection was easier to see than the world beyond the glass. She frowned briefly on seeing herself, hand rising to brush the crown of her head.

It finally clicked, and Scapolite reached into her pocket and pulled out her ribbon, lifting her hair and pulling the knot tight. She found the bow trickier than expected—being that it was manifested, not material, she usually just willed it in and out of place. It took a few tries, but at last she got it close enough that all it took were gentle tugs to make it even, feeling satisfied that she’d managed it. In the slightly blurry reflection offered by the window, the bow looked a little like the ears atop Kali’s head.

Strangely, she found herself smiling.

* * *

History was Scapolite’s primary concern, and the Belladonnas’ library was well-equipped to respond. She spent over a week tearing through volume after volume detailing the events of greatest interest to her: the Gem War, the past and current state of the Rose Rebellion, the foundation and fall of the Hunt. The last Rose Quartz was indeed deceased, she learned, with her cause of death listed in an online encyclopaedia article as ‘complications resulting from childbirth’. Reassuringly, other, more vocal users of the Internet found this as bewildering as Scapolite did. She gave up on finding anything useful amid the chaos, however, as each old forum thread she found eventually dissolved into insults and calls for something called ‘mods’.

Absent any compelling evidence to the contrary, it seemed she’d have to accept Ruby’s absurd claim of being the Last Rose’s biological half-human daughter. She certainly had the powers to prove it, at least, and the Gemstone. So the Rebellion’s leader really was no more. The Hunt, too, had been disbanded for centuries just as Ghira had said. The Hunt had been all that was left of the Rebellion as an organisation, and Haven was its clinging grasp at relevance in the modern world. There was no hierarchy, no central power structure to fall back on, just a half-empty facility nominally run by an _organic._

She’d already known the current state of the moon was down to the Rebellion—the destruction of the lunar comm relay was what had allowed them to execute their raid on Pink Diamond’s temple without any warning reaching Homeworld’s forces. Unfortunately, everything she’d learned so far indicated no one had repaired the relay in the millennia since then. Lacking the expertise to fix it herself, Scapolite wouldn’t be getting word off-planet anytime soon. She was starting to understand why Yang had been so convinced Remnant was safe. Whatever the reason, the Diamonds clearly _had_ abandoned the planet to its own devices after unleashing the Corruption on its Gems—perhaps They had meant to leave it as a warning to anyone who’d repeat Rose Quartz’s heresy? They couldn’t have expected Remnant’s people to have found a way to rebuild. If no one ever reached out to Homeworld—and it seemed no one even _could—_ was it really possible the Diamonds had turned Their gaze away for good?

She didn’t know what to think about that. How to feel.

_I need to know more._

About everything, _everything,_ because if there was one thing her time with the research team had taught her that her training had not, it was that there was no such thing as irrelevant information, only information for which you had yet to find a use. Somewhere in this trove of knowledge, there had to be _something_ that would give her an answer, even if it wasn’t the one she was looking for. She just had to commit, buckle down and refuse to be swayed from her mission until she’d—

“Blake?” Kali opened the library door, leaning in. “I was just about to head out to the market. Did you want to join me?”

…Well, there was more than one way to gather intelligence, wasn’t there?

“I’ll be right there!” Scapolite called, closing her book and returning it to its spot on the shelf.

* * *

“Is it normal to go out this early?” Scapolite asked, looking around. Sunrise was a none-too-distant memory, edging the world in gold and sending long shadows over the ground, making everything around her feel more solid and real somehow. Almost offensively so, after so long shut in the library.

“For food, yes. You get the best produce that way.” Kali glanced at her, poorly masking a smile. “And the freshest fish.”

“Understood,” Scapolite said, feeling that peculiar prickling that accompanied the response organics called ‘blushing’. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t felt it before coming to Remnant, but this new context where the response would not only occur but be acknowledged and empathised with was odd. Visible signs of emotion seemed to delight the organics around her for some reason.

As expected, Kali’s half-hidden smile becoming an impish grin at the sight. “Hey, I’m just happy you like our local staples so much!” she said, nudging her gently with the elbow over which she’d hooked her shopping basket. “Though I want to cook up a nice curry for you sometime, too. I bet you’ll love it.”

“I still don’t actually need food…”

“And people like me don’t actually need dessert, but we eat it anyway. Don’t get so caught up in the practicalities all the time. There’s being mature, and then there’s punishing yourself.”

 _Was_ she punishing herself, on some level? She didn’t think so. She was just trying to follow the rules, wasn’t she? Balancing all the unfamiliar foibles of being a good houseguest in Kuo Kuana against the rigid laws of Gemkind which ruled over her very nature.

“Come on, we’ll start with fruit and veg and work our way down to the docks. Maybe something simple for dinner tonight?” Kali suggested, hefting a hot pink fruit shaped a bit like a thistle. “Ceviche with pitaya?”

She had no idea what either of those things were, but she had yet to dislike anything Kali had tried to feed her. “Sounds good.”

Kali smiled, pleased, and started adding to her basket. “Oh, we haven’t had rambutan lately…”

Scapolite felt a small chill run down her spine, tilting her head just slightly. Yes; those were footsteps behind her, lighter yet more purposeful than the rest of the early-morning market crowd. She didn’t turn around, waiting until the person came to a stop just behind her shoulder.

“So you _are_ still around. Starting to think you’d slipped away in the dead of night, all mysterious and dramatic.”

Now she let herself turn, unsurprised to see Ilia leaning against the fruit stand, her arms crossed.

“Remember me?” she asked, arching an auburn eyebrow.

“Ilia Amitola. Chameleon Faunus. Watch volunteer,” Scapolite recited in a neutral tone. Then, a little more uncertainly, “White Fang member.”

“Ilia!” Adjusting her now-heavier basket, Kali stepped around Scapolite so she wasn’t blocking the stand, smiling at the Faunus girl. “Early patrol today?”

“Yeah. Traded shifts with Honore. Good to see you, Mrs. B.” She seemed to mean it, too. Apparently, _everyone_ liked Kali. Scapolite’s time on the Internet had taught her cats held some strange universal appeal. Perhaps that power extended to feline Faunus.

“I see you and Blake have already met. Did Ghira tell you she was staying with us?” Like with Cenere, her words were weighted with extra meaning, and for some reason Scapolite found herself reflecting on just how _sharp_ the teeth in Kali’s smile were.

Ilia ducked her head, pulling back a little. “Yes, ma’am. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to stir up any trouble.” Looking away from Kali allowed her eyes to fall on the plastic cooler hanging from Scapolite’s hands. “You’re helping with the shopping?”

“You sound surprised.”

“You jumped off a building to get out of a conversation. I figured you weren’t much of a people person.”

“I’m learning,” Scapolite said, rather defensively. She felt vaguely offended, and wasn’t really sure why.

Kali glanced between the two of them, her smile shifting, growing almost sly. “Ilia, have you been down to the docks yet?”

Ilia blinked at her, surprised. “No?”

“Well, why don’t you show Blake how to get there? She and I can divide the labour better that way.”

“Oh, but—I don’t—”

“It’s alright,” Kali said right over Scapolite’s verbal flailing. “Just introduce yourself politely and tell the fishmonger you’re shopping for me, she’ll steer you right. Her name’s Ameen. She’s tough, but she won’t give you any trouble if you don’t trouble her.”

“Auntie,” Ilia said weakly.

“Run along, you two!” Kali made a shooing motion. “Blake, I’ll see you back at the house. Ilia, take good care of her.

Ilia’s shoulders slumped. “Yes, Auntie.”

“Okay…?” Still off-balance from the abrupt change in plans, it took Scapolite a moment to get her feet moving in Ilia’s wake.

“Come on,” the Faunus said. “It’s this way.”

After a few unbearably long seconds of awkward silence, Scapolite ventured to speak. “I didn’t know you and Kali were related.”

“Huh?”

“You called her Auntie. That’s a family title, right? Um…a parent’s…sister?”

“Well, yeah, but no, we’re not related. Mrs. B’s a lot of people’s auntie, ’cause she’s an older woman with a lot of standing in the community. It’s a cultural thing.” Ilia frowned. “I guess it shows you respect her, but it’s familiar too, you know?”

“No,” Scapolite admitted. “I don’t.”

Ilia gave a sort of half-shrug. “I’m probably not the best person to explain it. I didn’t really get it either, when I first moved here.”

“You’re not from Menagerie?”

She shook her head. “No. My parents were, though; that’s why I came here after… I was raised in Atlas,” she said firmly, looking straight ahead, her expression forbidding. “There was a lot of adjustment.”

“It’s that different up north?” As soon as the question was out, Scapolite wanted to smack herself. How long had she spent observing in Vale before she’d made her final escape? The city was nothing like Kuo Kuana, and Atlas was even farther away.

“Yeah,” Ilia whispered. “It’s like a whole ’nother world.”

“I’m sorry,” Scapolite said, not exactly sure where she’d gone wrong but feeling wretched anyway. “I’ve been out of commission for a while. Sometimes I ask about obvious things.”

“It’s fine. You can’t help what you don’t know. At least you bother to ask,” she added in a low voice.

“Some people don’t?”

“‘Ignorance is bliss’, right? Better to just make up answers you can stomach and hold on to them because they _feel_ right. I guess that’s the one good thing about Gems—you’re all about objectivity, aren’t you?”

“Well, I guess as long as there’s _one_ good thing about me,” Scapolite said dryly.

Ilia’s stride faltered, and she groaned, briefly squeezing her eyes shut. “Ugh. I want to say that’s not what I meant, but it kind of was. I’m sorry.”

“If it’s what you feel, I’d rather you just came out and said it.”

“Trust me. Sometimes, even if you know people are thinking it, you just don’t want to hear it. And even if _you’re_ thinking it, choosing not to say it can limit the damage. Helps train you not to think that way, too.”

“The way you act…affects the way you think?” That didn’t make sense—and troubled Scapolite in a way she didn’t much care to examine. _Ignorance is bliss._

“Yeah, it’s like, a whole thing in psychology. Anything can become a habit, even decency.” Ilia shrugged. “Fake it ’til you make it, I guess.”

“Yeah…” _But what if you aren’t trying_ _to make it?_

* * *

“Oh,” Scapolite breathed, staring at the computer screen as she pressed a hand to her mouth. _I don’t know how to feel about this, either._

Something had told her it would be a bad idea to press Ilia further about her past, so Scapolite had let it go, trying her hand at small talk instead. It went…badly, but not? Apparently the weather was an especially pathetic choice of topic on a sub-tropical island. Ilia had laughed at her, but it hadn’t seemed mean, and by the time they’d parted ways at Ameen’s stall the Faunus girl had been smiling. Scapolite thought she might have been too—and oddly, that seemed to change the way the Faunus around her behaved, no longer giving her as wide a berth but pressing her into the throng right along with them. Definitely a mixed blessing.

She wasn’t smiling now, though. Unable to forget that brief conversation, Scapolite had detoured from her intended reading plan, searching online for information about Atlesian Faunus. It had proven to be quite the rabbit hole—a whole warren, in fact, where every tunnel led to the same place. The Schnee Dust Company. Touting itself as a family business despite its megacorp status, the company website of course had an entire page detailing a polished, gilded version of its history, replete with beautifully-composed photographs of the Schnees themselves. Including one of the current president, his wife, and their three children.

Weiss looked younger than she had when Scapolite had met her, and _she_ wasn’t smiling, either.

Scapolite stood and crossed to the door adjoining Ghira’s study. She knocked, then opened it, leaning inside as Kali had done earlier.

“Hm?” Ghira looked up at her from behind his desk. There was a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose, incongruously delicate compared to his powerful frame.

“Word association,” she said bluntly. “If I said ‘Schnee Dust Company’, you’d say…?”

He grunted, setting down the stack of papers in his hands. “Tough choice. ‘Den of wolves’, or maybe ‘can of worms’ depending on the audience. Definitely _something_ involving a lot of unsavoury creatures jammed into an enclosed space.”

“Not a fan?”

“The SDC’s monopoly over the Dust industry makes them a necessary evil. You’d be hard-pressed to find a Faunus that would argue the ‘evil’ part, however. Kali mentioned you spent some time with Ilia this morning.” There was a prompting tone to that last statement; when Scapolite didn’t respond, Ghira said, “I take it she opened up about a few things.”

“Not exactly,” Scapolite hedged. “So there’s a connection between the SDC and why she doesn’t like talking about Atlas?”

“The details are hers to share. I will say that she’s an orphan, and that Schnee negligence is to blame.”

“I see.” Scapolite looked down.

“I imagine it hits a little close to home for you. A small caste of elites forcing those they’ve trampled underfoot to fit into the roles prescribed to them, or face the consequences.”

“No,” Scapolite said immediately. “That’s—I—it’s different.”

“Hm.” He didn’t look convinced.

“I’ve met one,” she blurted out. “A Schnee.”

“Oh?”

“The younger daughter. She’s…one of the people who freed me. I think she might be a Huntress,” she added when Ghira’s brow furrowed. _That_ caused it to lift instead in an expression of mild surprise.

“A little young for that, isn’t she? Though traditionally, training did start between fourteen and eighteen…” Ghira slid his glasses off, folding them and fidgeting lightly with the frames. “You know, the SDC wasn’t always our bogeyman. It was their founder’s efforts that made Dust readily available worldwide, powered a whole third wave of industrialisation. Kuo Kuana would never have grown as much as it has otherwise; Menagerie’s one of the only places in the world without significant natural Dust deposits.”

“So what changed?”

“History is often the story of how our best intentions were undermined by our worst impulses. Not my words,” Ghira added; helpful, since they sounded perfectly at home in his voice. “An old history teacher from my time in Vale. He was a Sphene, had some odd sounding name I can’t quite remember. I remember he said that once, though. He was very uncompromising on studying history objectively, very critical of anyone who tried to look at it through rose-coloured glasses. Had to respect him for that, biases and all. You can thank him for the fact you didn’t get the same welcome from me as you did from Chen Maschera.

“The SDC’s ‘best intentions’ belonged to its founder, Nicolas Schnee—your Schnee’s grandfather, he would have been. The worst impulses that tore the heart out of what he built, those belong to his son-in-law, Jacques Gelé.”

“Now called Schnee.” Scapolite frowned. “Weiss’s father.”

“I can’t speak for what sort of a father he might be, but he’s no good as a man, and bad people don’t tend to make good parents in my experience.” Ghira narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Nicolas was a Huntsman, you know. A great man, by all accounts. From the stories I’ve heard, he might even have been a good one.”

“So you think Weiss might be a good person, too?”

“You’re the only person here who’s met her. You’d know better than I would.” He studied her carefully. “I can’t tell you what to think about people, Blake. You have to form your own opinions. All I can do is recommend you don’t judge too hastily or too harshly. People you look up to can turn out to be rotten below the surface. People you loathe on sight might be hiding a heart of gold.”

And _that,_ right there, was the most compelling argument for the rigid order of Homeworld that she’d ever heard out of an organic’s mouth. “Sounds like the smart thing to do is just to stay away from all of them.”

“It’s harder than it sounds. Besides, think how much you’d miss out on. Is it worth being alone, just to make sure you can never be disappointed?”

“I was designed to be alone,” Scapolite said, at a loss. And now Ghira looked…sad? She hadn’t said anything sad. Had she?

But then why did she feel sad, too?

“You know, I think I’m done for the day,” Ghira said, setting his glasses aside and straightening his papers before standing. “Have you ever played chess? Or Go?”

“Neither,” she said, a little bemused at the sudden change in subject. She was curious despite herself, though, and drifted fully into the study, letting the door to the library fall shut behind her.

“They’re both strategy games—they get compared a lot, but they couldn’t be more different if you ask me.” He crossed to the little sitting area set apart from his desk, a couch and a pair of chairs surrounding a long, low table. The table had a drawer, and as Scapolite approached he opened it and pulled out a square slab of finished wood with a grid of black lines etched onto its surface.

“Between the two, I prefer Go. You can draw your own conclusions on what that says about me.” He set the board on the table, along with two carved bowls of small stones in black and white. “If you’re done with your research for the day, what do you say we play a round?”

‘Done with her research’, as if she had some goal she worked towards day by day. As if she weren’t searching for something that increasingly seemed impossible—as if she weren’t allowing herself to become distracted again and again and justifying it to herself with a creed she’d borrowed from compulsive knowledge-hoarders.

But somehow she found herself admitting, “I’ve never played a game before.”

“Not any kind at all?”

She shook her head, holding herself awkwardly.

“Well, you’ve got all the time in the world to learn, don’t you?” He sat down and gestured at the board. “Why not start here?”

Hesitantly, she closed the rest of the distance between her and the board, taking a seat. Ghira smiled at her encouragingly.

“Now,” he said, placing a black stone on an intersection; it made an oddly soothing _click_ as it struck the wood. “The first thing you need to know about are liberties…”

* * *

Go became a regular part of her schedule after that, Ghira knocking on the adjoining door whenever he was done with work for the day and waiting patiently for her to finish jotting down her notes before she came through to join him. She also learned to write off her mornings on market days, as Kali was very enamoured with the idea of having an extra person to help carry the shopping. Besides Ameen the bear-Faunus fishmonger, Scapolite started to know many of the other merchants: Yarrow and his delicate bird talons at Kali’s favourite fruit stall, mouse-whiskered Kiara selling vegetables, the oft-mentioned but rarely-seen Ardelia Maschera who was indeed more welcoming of the Gem than her son had been.

As the weather grew steadily warmer, Vale’s autumn equating to Menagerie’s spring, the number of evenings she spent in the library began to taper off as well. Kali had made good on her threat to co-opt her for company in her sewing room—far from the hobby Scapolite had initially assumed it was, Kali was in fact a seamstress by trade, a small but reliable pool of clients providing a steady income in exchange for mending and crafting clothes.

“Sometimes I feel like a cliché,” she admitted, setting a new bobbin into her sewing machine, “but I came from a large family, and we learned to cook and sew so we’d always be able to look after ourselves. It’s not as if I _can’t_ do anything else, but I’ve had a lot of practice at these things. I’m good at them. Blake, dear, could you fetch the scissors for me? I don’t know why I left them all the way over there.”

At some point, she realised she no longer had to stop herself from flinching when people called her _Blake._ There wasn’t a delay where she failed to respond to the name. She had successfully internalised it, and she couldn’t help feeling a twinge of unease.

_(“Anything can become a habit.”)_

Even things that didn’t _need_ to be habits, like taking a stack of books back to her room so she didn’t have to walk through the dark house in the middle of the night. It felt eerie and empty when she was the only one awake. And another recent habit was broken entirely when she finally un-strapped the Record from its place on her back, setting it carefully on her writing desk. She’d developed a fondness for the bowl-shaped papasan chair in the library, and the stone tome made a very poor bolster pillow.

“I’m losing it,” she said aloud to herself one night. She was stretched out on the futon, her boots nearby on the floor and her coat draped over the stool. “What do I think I’m doing here?”

Scapolite heard a soft, familiar pattering noise, startling her. She sat up, looking over at the Record. It had fallen open like it was trying to answer her question, but it was only supposed to respond to direct queries, wasn’t it? Not that her question had been _vague,_ but how could the answer be in the Record? She hesitated, then swung her legs over the side of the futon, crossing to the desk and placing her palms on it, staring down at the exposed pages. It was a transcript, she noted in some surprise; there weren’t many of those that she’d found. This one was from about four thousand years prior, if she was meshing her calendars correctly.

_Transcribing . . ._

_[Rose Quartz] enters [White Agate]’s office. She is displaying signs of anxiety. She remains just inside the doorway for a period of 1 minute and 36 seconds._

_[Rose Quartz]: I know you aren’t really here. But I’m—you should know—I should be able to tell you. Damn it, how did everything get so screwed up…?_

_[Rose Quartz] turns away from the door._

_[Rose Quartz]: I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to do this anymore. But it’s my responsibility. I’m the one who broke the old system, so it’s my job to make the new one work, but I don’t know how much more I have in me._

_6 seconds elapse._

_[Rose Quartz]: I’m just tired, Glyn. It took someone telling me to my face that I could stop to even think about actually doing it. She’s a new Gem, you’d like her. A straight-talker. She and I, we want to build a new home. Just a, a little house in a nice place I found. Where we can have some peace. Can’t I have just a little of what we fought for? That freedom?_

_9 seconds elapse. [Rose Quartz] clenches her fists._

_[Rose Quartz]: I think you’d say I was being selfish, if you were here. That’s what you always warned Oz, that I was all heart and no head and couldn’t make the hard calls, and I guess you were right in the end. Listen to me, talking about freedom to you of all people. Maybe this is best for everyone, not just me. I just wish you could be here to help him. I wish…_

_11 seconds elapse. [Rose Quartz] leaves [White Agate]’s office._

_Transcript concluded._

“What does this have to do with what I asked?” Scapolite wondered, feeling a curious prickle at the base of her skull. It threatened to sweep up her scalp and down her back, making her shake. “This—so Rose Quartz couldn’t commit to the role she gave _herself,_ either. _Shocking._ This has nothing to do with me or why I’m here.”

The Record’s mottled pages didn’t budge.

“You,” she said, pointing to it, “are malfunctioning. Shoddy craftsmanship. What else should I have expected from Rebel tech?”

Rose Quartz’s conversation with a shattered Gem continued to stare up at her.

“I mean, you don’t even have a processing core anymore. I’m free now. So this is all just—glitches, or something. What do you want from me?”

The pages turned. Haven’s information was etched upon them in gold.

“No, that wasn’t a query! You _can’t_ want things,” Scapolite said, voice growing louder with her frustration. “You don’t have it in you! You can’t even _think_ for yourself! Any kind of reasoning ability you had was because of—”

Her hand hovered over her cracked Gemstone.

“You can’t want things,” she whispered.

The Record’s pages turned again. Patch.

“Stop it!”

Menagerie’s nearly-empty entry.

Scapolite reached out and slammed the Record closed.

* * *

“Blake?”

She looked up from her novel (‘cultural research’, she told herself, wondering why she even bothered) to see Ghira standing in the doorway to his study.

_That time already?_

“Are you up for Go today?” he asked, looking her over. “You seem tired.”

“Gems don’t get tired,” she replied automatically. “That would hamper our efficiency.”

“Have you been getting enough sun?”

“Yes, I—” She blinked. “Maybe. I think so.” Honestly, with as much time as she’d been spending indoors lately, it was entirely possible Kali’s cooking was doing the heavy lifting in keeping her moving.

Ghira looked dubious, to say the least. “At least bring your book in here, then. The lighting’s better.”

“Okay.”

Ghira observed her listless movements with obvious concern, moving aside to let her through. What was she supposed to do with that? All these organics fussing over her welfare! Didn’t they realise they’d be better off without her? If there were people who could resent and mistrust the Gems who had fought for their species’ survival, why were they welcoming _her_ with open arms? She was actively looking for a way to get them all killed!

 _Guess you’re just that good of a liar,_ Blake. _Great job._

“Is there anything I can get you?” Ghira asked, awkward and halting as she propped her back against the arm of the couch. At a loss for what to do with her. _It’s going around. Line forms behind me._

“No, I’m fine.”

She probably should have put a bit more effort into her delivery, because his face crumpled the way it had when Kali had cut her hand last week. Quick reflexes ensured she’d only grazed it—except for sanitary concerns, she could have left it to heal in open air—but Ghira had hovered near his wife with that expression on his face all while she bandaged herself, making irritated noises at him and trying in vain to shoo him away.

“Let’s see if we can open this up a little,” he said to himself, crossing to the sliding doors which opened onto the outdoor walkway. He pulled open the one in front of the couch where she’d settled herself, letting in a golden shaft of late-afternoon sunlight. Scapolite had to admit, she did feel a little better as her Gemstone warmed from it. Maybe part of her problem had been physical, after all.

Ghira remained near the door, and as Scapolite glanced up at him, she realised he had gone still.

“Sienna,” he said rather stiffly, still with his back to the study.

“Ghira,” greeted an unfamiliar voice, a slow rising inflection demanding answers without the need for another word. “I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in. I _am_ still welcome in your home?”

Scapolite lowered her book, narrowing her eyes as she tried to see past Ghira’s broad back. She could see slender legs and sandal-clad feet, their size and that voice suggesting their visitor was female. _Should I go back to the library?_

“Of course,” Ghira replied. He did not, however, move, and Scapolite wracked her brain for a reason why.

 _Sienna._ She’d heard that name before—from Kali, the day they’d met. She’d said that Cenere had been listening more to Sienna than Ghira, and that was why he’d been hostile towards Scapolite.

 _Good enough for me._ She closed the book quietly, setting it on the table and rolling off the couch, catching herself with her hands. A hiss escaped her as she jostled her Gemstone, watching in dismay as a fine, glittering dust fell from her navel onto the floor. _Got to be more careful._ Gingerly straightening up, she made her way across the room as quietly as she could, trying to keep her boots from resounding quite so clearly against the hardwood.

“Sounds like you already have a guest.”

She froze, turning slowly. Just in time to see Ghira step away from the door, giving her an apologetic grimace. Standing framed there was a woman whose dark skin was marked by even darker stripes, a pair of tiger ears crowning a head of glossy black hair, and for the third time since coming to Menagerie, Scapolite found herself meeting eyes much the same colour as her own. The tiger Faunus’s arms were crossed, and her stance spoke of power in a way Scapolite had rarely detected in an organic.

“So this is the Gem Kali’s been parading around town,” Sienna said, stepping into the study. “I’m surprised at you, Ghira. Did you not think this was a matter for the rest of the council? Or did you simply forget you are no longer sole leader of Kuo Kuana?”

“It was an interim term,” Ghira said in the dully-aggrieved tone of one revisiting an especially worn-out argument. “And I didn’t think Blake’s presence here was a matter for _any_ of the council. She is a guest in our home, not the one-man vanguard of an invasion.”

Scapolite bit the inside of her mouth to hold in a hysterical giggle. _Are we sure about that?_

“Blake, this is Sienna Khan,” Ghira said, gesturing to her. “She serves on the town council with me. She’s also a particularly influential member of the White Fang.”

“You always sound so disappointed about that.”

“Despite the fact that we disagree on certain issues, she is still a good friend of the family. And she respects the rules of hospitality,” he added in a lower voice—not _quieter,_ but quite literally _lower,_ the rumble beneath his deep baritone growing more pronounced.

“Always,” Sienna agreed, giving Ghira a solemn nod. “I think _everyone_ here understands the importance of respect.”

Oh, Diamonds’ eyes, she was too tired for this.

“It’s an honour to meet you, Councillor Khan,” Scapolite said politely, canting her head and shoulders forward in a shallow bow. “Please excuse me. I’ll leave you to your meeting.”

“Blake,” Ghira said, making eye contact with her. “We’ll talk later?”

“Of course.” She gave him the same vague obeisance before withdrawing through the library door, breathing a sigh of relief as it closed behind her.

 _Oh, it’s a_ reflex _now. Why not hide your Gemstone and paint over your skin while you’re at it?_

“Shut _up,”_ she growled under her breath, leaning her head back against the wood of the door. That’s when she realised she could hear the conversation on the other side.

“If you wanted to know, you could have asked,” Ghira was grumbling. “An ambush wasn’t necessary.

“I gave you over a month to tell me about her yourself. I ran out of patience.”

“I wasn’t aware Blake was considered a secret. You even mentioned how she’s been going around with Kali.”

“Communication matters. _How_ we come to know things can make even more difference than the knowledge itself. While we’re talking about Gems, what was their old party line again, the one they used to trot out when they wanted all the soft little mortals to shut up and play nice? Something about strength through unity?”

“Are you implying we’re divided because there’s a Gem staying in my guest room?”

“You tell me.”

_“Sienna.”_

“You were born and raised on this consolation prize of an island, Ghira. You’ve been surrounded by _us_ for so much of your life you’ve forgotten there’s a _them_ out there happy to see us willingly pen ourselves in!”

“Blake’s presence in my home _does not_ reveal some deep-seated apologist streak, if that’s what you’re getting at. She is here because she needed a place to stay. Should we have turned her away on the basis of her species? Is that what the White Fang stands for now?”

“Shouldn’t you know what the White Fang stands for? You’re _supposedly_ our leader.”

“What is this _about?_ Blake in particular, Gems in general, your dissatisfaction with how I’ve led the Fang? Dare I hope it’s even council business?”

Silence.

“You can retract your claws,” Sienna said clearly, “but they’re still there. Try not to forget about them while you’re busy playing house.”

“Excuse me?” Ghira asked, so soft Scapolite could barely hear him.

“She’s not some runaway teen who needs shelter. She’s an _alien_ who’s older than you by _thousands_ of years, whose species has never given a damn about ours and never will because humans are _ants_ to them, and _we’re_ what those ants step on. How did you think this would end, exactly?”

Ghira’s voice was tight as he replied. “With Blake getting whatever it is she needs, and finding her way home. _Wherever_ that happens to be.”

She thought of Homeworld, Patch, her cosy bedroom here in Kuo Kuana, Yang telling her she could learn what ‘family’ meant. In a burst of movement, Scapolite pushed away from the door, shoving the other exit open and taking the corridors at a flat run.

 _What am I doing? Why am I here? What do I_ want?—which was the wrong question, because it _didn’t matter—_

_(“You’re allowed to want things.”)_

_Only the_ right _things!_

She wasn’t looking where she was going, and it was only Kali’s quick recoil that saved them both from a painful collision.

“Oh! Are you alright, dear?”

“No!” wrenched its way out before Scapolite could stop it. She smacked a hand over her mouth, backing away. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, feeling herself tear up.

“Oh, Blake,” Kali said quietly, and then there were arms around her, pulling her close, and Scapolite was sobbing into her shoulder. “It’s okay, sweetie. It’s okay…”

* * *

“You look like crap.”

Scapolite’s eyes flew open. She sat bolt upright on her futon, tossing away the covers and hissing as once again, her attempt to summon her weapon failed miserably.

Throughout all this, Ilia had not moved an inch from her perch on the windowsill, framed by…sunlight?

“What?” Scapolite snatched the analogue clock off her bedside table, staring at its face in disbelief. “I’m missing _ten_ _hours_ of time,” she realised aloud, raising a hand to her mouth.

“It’s called ‘sleeping’,” Ilia said dryly. “Congrats, you’re a prodigy. I hear most Gems have to learn meditation before they can manage actual sleep, or going into rest mode or whatever it is you do.”

“Rest and reset,” Scapolite murmured, remembering what Ruby had said about Yang’s habits.

“‘Rested’ isn’t the word I’d use to describe you right now, so I sure hope the ‘reset’ part went better.”

“What are you doing in my room?” she asked finally, looking back up at the Faunus girl. “Isn’t your entire job stopping people from doing what you’re doing right now?”

“I’m not in your room,” Ilia said, looking pointedly down at her feet. “And the window was open. I haven’t broken or entered.”

“Trespassing?”

“Most of the local Fang members have a standing invitation to _casa de_ Belladonna, me included. I’m still outside so, technically, I haven’t gone into anyone’s private room.” Ilia shrugged, bracing her forearms on her knees. “Lucky for me your window’s so big.”

Belatedly realising she was holding this conversation while still in bed, Scapolite swung her legs down, reaching for her boots. “That still doesn’t answer my first question,” she said as she pulled them on.

“Because you vanished for like, a week. I was starting to wonder if you’d poofed yourself on a kitchen knife or something. _Ameen_ was getting worried, and that’s a sign of the end times right there. And when I couldn’t get anything out of Mrs. B…” Ilia shrugged again, not just with her shoulders but with a little roll of her neck, setting her ponytail swinging.

“Why do you keep worrying about me?” Despite her intentions, the words came out more mystified than exasperated.

“You remind me of someone,” Ilia said. “Took her awhile to get her life together, too. Honestly, she’s still trying.”

“Does she ever…catch herself thinking she’s in the wrong place? That maybe she’s trying to be someone she’s not?”

“Pretty much constantly,” Ilia said breezily, not quite meeting her eyes. “She keeps hoping those’re some of the ‘intrusive thoughts’ all those pop psychology articles talk about. The ones that’re just your brain trying to screw you over so you shouldn’t listen to them.”

“What if those are the thoughts that were already there?” Scapolite reached across her body, gripping her elbow tight. “What if the new thoughts, the—the _wrong_ thoughts are the ones that make you wonder if you _do_ belong?”

“I think that just means the other thoughts intruded a long time ago. Long enough you convinced yourself they were what was normal, just because no one was around to tell you different. All I know is, thoughts that push you towards something that’ll make you happy aren’t _wrong.”_ She tilted her head. “Well, I mean, I guess maybe if you’re a serial killer or something they might be. You’re not a serial killer, right?”

“That depends. Are you on watch right now?”

“Oh my gods. A real, live joke. You aren’t a robot, after all.”

Scapolite scoffed, and Ilia grinned.

“You…your friend,” Scapolite began. “She see a light at the end of the tunnel?”

“Yeah.” Ilia’s grin closed into a rueful smile. “Jury’s still out on whether it’s just an oncoming train, but yeah.”

That startled a laugh out of Scapolite.

“And you’re emoting! We’re making so much progress today.”

Scapolite studied Ilia for a moment, thinking of another girl with a ponytail, whose parents were responsible for Ilia having none.

“Do you think,” she asked haltingly, “that just because something starts bad, it has to end that way?”

“Getting deep here,” Ilia observed. “Should we be braiding each other’s hair right now, or is that just for talking about girls? Or, uh, boys, I guess. Or…fellow space-rock people.”

“I think that one might’ve gone over my head.”

“Oh, it’s, um. It’s a thing people say about, uh, when girls get together to talk about people they like.” Ilia went pink—bright pitaya-skin pink, her spots a clashing crimson. “Romantically. It’s fine. I forgot most Gems don’t _do_ the whole romance thing so of course you wouldn’t…and sleepovers aren’t even a thing for you and you were never really _that age_ and…A-plus cultural sensitivity, good job, Ilia.”

“No! No, it’s okay. Another Gem probably would’ve got it, I’m just a little behind the times,” Scapolite assured her. “On a lot of things, actually.”

“An old-fashioned kind of girl, I see.” Ilia’s colour slowly faded back to normal. “Maybe it’s good you wound up here, then. It’s a pretty good place for finding the new you. So my friend says.”

“Your friend sounds pretty smart.”

A more traditional pinkness bloomed on Ilia’s face. “She has her moments.”

They both startled when there was a knock at the bedroom door.

 _“Blake?”_ Kali’s voice. _“Can I come in?”_

“Welp, I don’t feel like actually arguing the trespassing thing in a lawyer’s house,” Ilia whispered, leaning back. “Talk later?”

Scapolite nodded. “I’ll see you around.”

Ilia grinned and flung herself back from the window, out of sight. Scapolite heard only the faintest rustle as she crept away.

 _“Blake? …Are you asleep?”_ Kali’s voice actually hushed a little, as if the Gem wouldn’t already have awoken by now.

 _Or would I? Maybe I’m a heavy sleeper. I didn’t hear Ilia until she was practically in the room. She_ is _pretty sneaky, though…_

“I’m awake,” Scapolite called, approaching the door. She took a deep breath as she settled her hands on the frame. She hadn’t actually left her room in the past week. Kali or Ghira came by several times a day to remind her about mealtimes—to implicitly ask about her welfare, she had recognised, which had only made her feel worse. This would be the first time she’d come face-to-face with one of her hosts since she’d broken down in front of Kali.

She let the air out and pulled the door open, trying not to wince at Kali’s look of shock on seeing her.

“That bad?” Scapolite asked weakly.

“No! Oh, honey, no, I just wasn’t…” _Expecting me to open the door._ “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Kali tried, smiling; it was genuine, but edged with a strange anxiety.

Scapolite looked down at her feet. “I’m sorry for worrying you.”

“Don’t apologise for that! I know things have been difficult for you. Please don’t feel like you need to put on a show for us.” She reached out, gently wrapped a hand around Scapolite’s wrist and squeezed. “Just, if there’s anything we can do to help…”

“I…I think I just need to see what happens,” Scapolite said vaguely. “With me. In general. Um. Did you need something?”

“Well. No, not exactly.” Kali fidgeted. “Although, there is something I thought you might want to help me with.”

“Is it market day? Did I lose count?”

“No, no. This is something different.” Kali looked almost shy as she peeked at Scapolite’s face. “Do you know what a _rangoli_ is?”

* * *

“So is Diwali…” Scapolite tested out the unfamiliar word. She’d learned about the concept of holidays during her research, but this wasn’t one she’d come across. “Is it a Kuo Kuana festival?”

“No, not really; it’s from further north. Nadialaya and Vanarajya both celebrate it—well, no surprise, they used to be the same culture and they’re still very similar in a lot of ways. The ocean between them never meant much with their constant trade, and it means even less in this day and age.” Holding her paper funnel carefully, Kali poured a thin stream of orange sand onto the foyer floor, outlining a floral pattern. “I’m Nadialayan by birth—so I’m from southeast Sanus, if you were wondering—and Ghira’s mother was Vanarajit, from southwest Anima. There are a few others with similar backgrounds on Menagerie. I think you met Sienna? She’s from Vanarajya.”

Scapolite suppressed a flinch at the reminder of That Conversation, watching Kali carefully as she tried to mimick her actions with a cone full of blue sand. “So is there a religious…thing, here?”

“Mm, originally. But it was a ‘thing’ in a lot of different religions, even though they all celebrated in very similar ways. I’m sure you’ve read enough history books over the last several weeks that I don’t need to tell you Remnant is mostly secular, these days.”

“I didn’t want to assume.”

“Well, our traditional deities don’t get discussed much anymore, but the spiritual importance of Diwali is still the same. It’s a celebration of the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance,” Kali recited.

“Explains all the lanterns around the house. Oh, sh—” Scapolite hissed, pinching her fingers around the end of her funnel. “I’m sorry. My hand slipped.”

“It’s okay,” Kali reassured her, not for the first time, as she gently nudged the sand into its place in the pattern with deft fingers, stroking rather than prodding. “It’s tricky when you’re just learning. I spent years watching my mother and older sisters make _rangolis_ before they ever let me try for myself.”

“Maybe _I_ should have just watched,” Scapolite reflected ruefully.

“You’re doing just fine. You’ll never get better without practicing, right?”

“I guess not.” Scapolite worked in silence for a time, doing her best to focus. “Are there rules on what the pattern should be?”

“No rules, only traditions. Some regions build around different shapes more often than others. Sometimes families use variations on the same design, or incorporate the same motifs in each year’s patterns, like—” She pointed at a winding, vine-like part of the pattern, an outline yet to be filled in. “My great-grandmama started adding that vine when our family started spreading out further. Those of us who move away add it to our _rangolis_ too. The same vine connecting all of us flowers. Each daughter of our family teaches their own daughter to make it, so we never forget.”

“Oh.” Scapolite had picked up a cone of green sand, and had been about to attempt that section, but Kali’s explanation stopped her short. “That’s…a nice thought. Connection.”

Gently, Kali cupped the Gem’s hands in hers, scarred flesh and fragile bone wrapped around violet-black hard light. She guided the funnel over the vine, slowly drawing their hands through the air, laying a smooth line of green down into the outline.

“This is only the first day,” she remarked, not looking up from the pattern. “There are four more. We’ll be in the kitchen for most of tomorrow, Ghira and I. You should come see him make sweets. The man has never mastered normal cookery, but _confections,_ now _that_ he can wrap his head around. It comes of being an only child; his mother wanted to make sure he could keep the traditions alive, if he wanted.”

“It meant that much to her?” Scapolite asked, a lump in her throat.

“Leaving traditions behind is one thing. Losing them is another. The first is a choice, and the second is having choice taken from you.”

“Choice,” Scapolite murmured.

“There, look at that. A perfect vine.” Kali took her hands away, smiling at the Gem. “See, you just need to learn to keep your hands steady. It’ll come with time.”

Scapolite watched silently as Kali lifted a vial of violet sand. Unconsciously, she reached down and brushed her fingers against her damaged Gemstone, gritting her teeth against the answering flare of pain.

“Kali?”

Her voice came out more timid than she’d expected. Kali’s hands stilled.

“Yes, dear? What is it?” She smiled, but her eyes were wide and worried.

“I might not be here tomorrow. In fact, I probably won’t.”

“Oh.” Kali blinked, swallowing hard.

“Not that you’ve given me any reason to leave!” Scapolite said hastily. “I…I left some unfinished business behind. When I came here. Running, just like you said that first day. And…I don’t think I want to run anymore.”

Kali heard her out, not reacting at first. Slowly, she nodded.

“I won’t pretend to know what it is you left behind,” Ghira began; Scapolite and Kali both started at the sound, looking up as the man entered from the hallway behind his wife. “But if it’s something that sent you running, going back to face it is very brave of you. And if that’s something you feel you need to do…”

“…You should do it,” Kali finished as her husband drew to a stop beside her. “Set yourself free.”

“Can I…” Scapolite’s eyes darted between them. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but if I can, can I come back, when I’m done? At least to visit?”

“Of course you can,” Ghira said with a little scoff; neither of the others in the room mentioned the brightness of his eyes. “You owe me a Go match. How am I supposed to collect if you don’t come back?”

“You’re always welcome to stay here for as long as you want,” Kali said, reaching out and squeezing Scapolite’s hands. “We’ll be right here waiting.”

“We’ll need to talk,” Scapolite said slowly, fighting to keep her voice steady. “If— _when_ I get back. There’s some things I haven’t told you.”

Ghira knelt down on the floor to Kali’s other side, putting a large hand over their clasped ones. “When you’re ready to talk, we’ll listen.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, her vision blurring.

They knelt there like that for a moment, until Ghira lifted his hand away. “Now, let’s see. Looks like red is woefully underrepresented this year. Again,” he said, picking up a funnel. “Blake, back me up here. There could definitely be more red in this thing.”

“Mm. There _could,”_ she conceded. “Or there could be more yellow instead.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you dare.”

She gave him a sly smile, reaching for the vial of yellow sand.

* * *

Coat, boots, and bow in place, the Record secure at her back, she ascended the stone steps to the warp. Halfway up she hesitated, turning to look over her shoulder at the lights of Kuo Kuana far below.

_You have a plan. See it through, and you can come back._

She was resolved, finally. She’d go to Haven and explain her situation frankly to the director—Leonardo Lionheart, she reminded herself, hoping the use of his name would buy her a little goodwill. Either he’d call down the remaining Rebels on her or he wouldn’t, but either way, she was prepared. Well, actually, she wasn’t, not even a little, but she was determined to act as if she were. She would explain herself as many times to as many people as she needed to—she would _beg_ if she had to, if that was what it took to get her Gemstone healed the way Ruby and Yang had assured her she could.

And then she owed Yang an apology. Probably several. Ruby and Weiss, too, but at least she hadn’t left them holding a hologram while she ran. All of the things the Ametrine had said—all of the things _she_ had written off as desperate promises—she’d hear them out again, if Yang was willing, and this time, she’d have a different answer.

Maybe she wouldn’t be alone by the time she came back to Kuo Kuana, she thought as the warp came into sight. By the time she came—

“Salutations!”

Scapolite stopped short, staring for a long moment as heat and cold flashed through her by turns. She wasn’t sure what it was about the little green Gem standing on the warp that tipped her off about her allegiances. The moment their eyes met, though, Scapolite realised that _home_ had come to _her._

“Hello,” she said numbly. One of the novels she’d read earlier in the month had described something called the _pit of his stomach_ and how it could feel like something had dropped into or out of it, causing an unpleasant sense of weight or emptiness _;_ another described a sensation _like the ground had disappeared from under my feet._

Scapolite could now relate to both protagonists far better than she had at the time.

“You’re from Homeworld,” she said. “Aren’t you.”

“Uh…” The other Gem hesitated, squinting at her and tilting her head. “Nnooo…?”

Unable to repress a quiet sigh, Scapolite raised her arms and twisted them into the Authority salute. The other Gem brightened immediately, returning the gesture.

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “Yes, yes, yes! Af _firmative!_ Peridot 3IX. And you?”

“Bl…ack Scapolite, 7RB,” she said, almost stumbling over her own designation. Her tongue burned like she’d swallowed acid. “Reporting for duty, ma’am.” One heavy, bitter thought filled her mind.

_I knew it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. I guess she wasn't alone.
> 
> Kali: I've only known Blake for a few weeks, but if anything happened to her, I would kill everyone on this island and then myself.  
> Sienna: Do you think you could maybe. not do that?  
> Ghira: *dad glare*  
> Sienna: Understandable, have a great day.
> 
> Yes hmm today I shall write a discussion of racism and especially historical racism as perceived by someone who's been fed a pro-slavery narrative her entire life and has never felt the need to question it *screams into pillow* Anyway this has been Menagerie, sort of, and also a bit of Can't Go Back. 100% recommend giving That Distant Shore a re-listen (or a first listen, if you're not part of the SU fandom except via this fic) because this chapter and Blake's characterisation throughout it was honestly inspired more by the song itself than either of the mentioned episodes, including the one that contains said song. Apologies to anyone with a personal investment for murdering Sanskrit and co-opting Diwali (and secularising it for canon-compliance purposes); I realised this chapter would fall around the right time of year (and lunar cycle, even!) and could not shake the idea of Kali tentatively inviting Blake to join in on Belladonna family traditions because I am. a sap. the literal blood of trees.
> 
> Next time: Well, according to the outline, it's Marble Madness, and I concede it isn't *not* Marble Madness, but it's much less of that than I think I originally thought it was going to be. Yup, that sure was a sentence right there. Also hey guess who never upped the chapter count after the last surprise two-parter, so there might actually be 19 chapters total, not 18. It’ll depend on how the next chapter shakes out in terms of pacing and word count. We'll see what happens.
> 
> As always, comments are very much appreciated, but it's been good to have you here whether you leave one or not. See you next time! Thanks for reading!


	16. Uncommon Enemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Scapolite's help, Peridot works to complete her mission before their pursuers can track down her ship...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, this turned out about as much like Marble Madness as I expected, which is to say, it mostly wasn't. Enjoy!

“So this is the only thing left we need?” Scapolite asked, looking around anxiously at the high cliffs as she followed in Peridot’s wake.

“Yes! Thanks to the Record, we now possess a substantial amount of the data I was attempting to collect with my robonoids. Unfortunately, it looks as if White Agate never visited the Kindergarten during her time as the Record’s keeper.”

“Why didn’t you come here right away? Kindergartener used to be one of the most common assignments for Peridots. If the Rebellion still had the personnel—and the infrastructure—we’d have just walked right into a trap.”

“I was exercising caution by surveilling key portions of especially hostile territory remotely before investigating in person. I did not expect anyone to catch on to what I was doing so soon!” Peridot raised her hands in a helpless gesture, not looking back at Scapolite as they continued on. “I _certainly_ did not expect to attract the attention of such prominent Rebels, even after I learned the Rebellion still existed!”

“Yeah,” Scapolite conceded heavily. If she had a heart, she’d have suspected the sensation in her chest was its sinking. Because of course, of _course_ basically the first thing Yang had done after Scapolite had tried to warn her about distancing herself from Rebellion leadership had been to attack Blue Diamond’s hand-picked envoy while _Fused with_ _a Rebel Commander._ A commander infamous enough for Scapolite to _recognise on sight_ back in the Emerald Forest. _‘Damn it, Yang’_ was fast becoming her mental catchphrase.

_Forget her. Forget all of them. Focus on the one person you can still salvage from this mess._

She swallowed down the phantom sickness in her throat.

_Set yourself free._

* * *

“Goodness!” Peridot chirped, running her hand over the console to wake it. “This tech is older than I am!”

“This _colony’s_ older than you are,” Scapolite pointed out. “Of course it’s all going to look outdated to you.” She leaned against the rough stone walls of the underground cavern, soaking in the familiar atmosphere: the indirect lighting, the shape of machinery intuitive to her yet alien to the Remnan sensibilities in which she’d been immersed. The stark severity of this small underground chamber. ‘Small’ by Gem standards, of course; a Diamond would have to make little adjustment to Their form to operate in this space. Pink Diamond, as the smallest, would be comfortable at Her natural size, or at worst have found it just a touch snug.

“Al _right!_ It looks like the control module is up and running!” Peridot flashed a grin at her as the console hummed to life.

“Yes,” Scapolite confirmed wearily. “You said it right.”

“Sen _sa_ tional.”

“Why do you care so much about learning Valean? The language is going to be dead inside a decade, tops, once we bring in reinforcements.” _Along with all life on the planet._

“I am hoping that when our conquest is over, we will be able to successfully recruit a particular Gem with whom I had a most interesting conversation! She proposed that we become ‘friends’, and I would like to take her up on the offer.”

“Homeworld’s not going to risk leaving anything alive, Peridot. Get that through your head right now.” Scapolite crossed her arms, looking away. “There’s nothing and no one on this planet you can save. The last person to think otherwise was Rose Quartz, and look how _that_ worked out.”

Peridot’s face fell. She turned back to the console, prodding at it with a great deal less enthusiasm than she’d shown before. “Of course. You are correct.”

In some ways, Peridot’s shift in mood was a relief, even a comfort. Mostly, it just made Scapolite feel even worse—but at least there was finally blessed quiet. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

“Oh dear.”

Of course the peace couldn’t last.

“Can we outrun it, or should we stay put so we go quick in the initial blast?” she asked dully.

 _“What?_ No, it’s the control module. The data has been wiped.”

Peridot sounded like she was pouting through that last statement, and sure enough when Scapolite opened her eyes the smaller Gem’s lower lip was jutting out even as her brow furrowed in a frown.

“I guess the Rebellion decided to cover their tracks.”

“There were no tracks to cover!” Peridot protested. “Once the injectors were shut down, the Kindergarten would have ceased production. They had no use for any of the equipment or the data.”

“By that logic, neither should Homeworld, right? Unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“No! There were a few sites Blue Diamond specifically ordered me to investigate, and the Prime Kindergarten was the last one left. I thought this would be the best place to start.” Peridot tapped at one of her bracers, changing the output on her visor screen. “I suppose the information collected by my robonoids will have to be enough. I will download the files from the module’s operating system as well, just in case a retrieval program can find anything I might have missed. Have to keep it isolated, though, juuuust in case,” she muttered, her voice growing softer and softer as it became clear she was no longer actually talking to Scapolite.

“Is there anything I can do?” Scapolite asked, already knowing the answer.

“No, no, not unless the Record has anything about a Rebellion mission to the Kindergarten.”

“I did the equivalent of a keyword search. There wasn’t anything specific, just mentions of emergent Gems dating to up to two thousand years after the Kindergarten’s shutdown.”

“Which is not useful information for us at the moment. I will add it to my report, though.”

“Just let me know when you’re done,” Scapolite sighed, closing her eyes again.

* * *

Stepping onto the warp in broad daylight and emerging into the perpetual twilight of a Solitas winter was disorienting, to say the least. ‘Winter’, as if Solitas had another season besides the handful of months at the height of summer where the snow came down as sleet. Why organics had settled here, Scapolite couldn't understand. There was so much empty wilderness in Anima and Sanus, even if you didn’t count the massive desert taking up the western two-thirds of the latter continent. She expected it came down to some combination of pride, stubbornness, and _independence._

“Come on,” Peridot urged, taking the steps down from the platform two at a time. “The last few robonoids should be arriving back at camp soon, and then we can get going.”

“Yeah,” Scapolite said softly, following her at a more sedate pace, watching her boots sink into the snow with every step. “We shouldn’t stay out in the open like this anyway.”

Though for Solitas, the warp was downright sheltered, nestled in a small crevasse that as far as Scapolite could tell had only one viable way out, a narrow, rocky outcrop almost completely consumed by the ice. And calling it viable was a bit of a stretch; there were a couple of points where they had to climb the ice itself instead of following the makeshift path to the top. To say it was slow going was an understatement, and that more than anything was what made her feel so exposed out here. That, and the biting wind. The cold didn’t affect her, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t feel it, gritting her teeth against the discomfort as the wind drove needles into her synthesised nerves and howled deafeningly past her ears. At least the sheer walls of the crevasse meant there weren’t many places an enemy could hide.

‘Not many’, but not ‘none’.

“F-f-finally,” whimpered the smaller of their observers, rubbing her gloved hands together and blowing on them for warmth.

“I told you you didn’t have to come out here,” said her taller counterpart, pulling out her scroll. “You’ve got nothing to prove. You’re smaller, so the cold hits you harder. I know you’re tough.”

“C-couldn’t leave you w-without b-b-backup. M-May and Jo h-had their t-turns.”

“Aw, Fi…” She raised her scroll to her ear, waiting for the call to go through. “Yeah, it’s Hill. Spotted your mark plus one extra—matches the description of the Black Scapolite I hear some Gem Huntsmen have been searching for. Remind me why I’m calling you and not them?”

_“Because I won’t tell you virtue’s its own reward. I’m on my way.”_

“Do you want me to—and he hung up.” Robyn lowered her scroll, giving the screen an exasperated look. “Prick. Right. I’ll call the others, tell them—”

“—a s-small snowc-crawler should w-work, but we n-n-need stealth,” Fiona was saying into her scroll. “Get one of the g-good ones, wh-white paint, and _heat._ R-requisition it if y-you have to, s-say we’re on a priority h-hunt.”

Robyn smirked and put her scroll away. “Took the words right out of my mouth.” Being a Huntress didn’t offer much in the way of official support, least of all from the Atlesian military, but if you had registered yourself with Haven to snag a fancy ID card to wave, looking harassed and desperate and snapping out something curt about increased monster activity was usually enough to pressure some assistance out of all but the most tight-fisted of Mantle’s quartermasters. _They_ knew who really kept their city safe.

One of Fiona’s broad sheep ears twitched in acknowledgement, the Faunus baring her chattering teeth in a smile. “Th-thanks, May. M-make it fast.”

* * *

“I’m not paying extra for this,” were the first words out of Torchwick’s mouth when he arrived. Well, the first words anyone else heard—the actual first words had been ‘oh, fuck this’ when he’d realised how he was meant to get out of the crevasse. Twisting his mouth in displeasure, he then twisted his shape into that of a rather oversized red kite, heaved himself into the air, and sailed up to the surface, resuming his proper form upon landing.

At least two out of the three members of his audience appeared suitably impressed with the display, though disappointingly, neither of them actually _said_ anything. Robyn, Dame Unimpressed herself, was the only one who spoke.

“Didn’t figure.” She leaned back against the snowcrawler—a vehicle not unlike a sleek, low-profile tank with its treads. “But you’re _definitely_ paying extra for backup. Unless you’re planning to go into a fight with the odds stacked against you.”

 _“Potential_ fight, this is supposed to be eyes-only,” Torchwick stressed—but, damn, he’d only gotten this far by making sure his confidence never gave way to cockiness. Safe wasn’t _always_ better than sorry, but he had too much riding on this to risk it. “Fine. Twenty percent.”

“Fifty.”

“Thirty and you’ll _like_ it, ’cause if we lose the trail dickering over price you’re getting exactly what I’ll get: jack-fucking-all.”

“Done,” Robyn said, pushing off the side of the vehicle and yanking the door open. She climbed into the driver’s seat, next to a sheep Faunus who was all but embracing the heat vents on her side of the dashboard. “Nope, not you,” she added when Torchwick reached for the back door. She jerked a thumb out her door, indicating the rear of the vehicle. “Someone’s gotta follow the trail, and that sounds like a job for the only one of us who can turn into a bird.”

“You _just_ found out I could do that!” Torchwick protested, even as May’s hand beat his to the door handle. She pulled it open and swung herself in, giving him a smug grin and a jaunty two-fingered salute as Joanna climbed in on the other side. He replied with the one-fingered version and a sneering fake smile as the door cut her off from sight.

“Yeah, well, originally the plan was for me to track their prints on foot, but that was before I knew you could fly. C’mon, it’ll be faster this way.”

Torchwick swept his hair out of the way, pointing at his Gemstone. “Seriously? Let the one-eyed man lead the way, that’s your plan?”

“You don’t need depth perception to follow footprints. Look, are you sure you wanna make this your sticking point? ’Cause if we lose the trail dickering over who’s stuck outside, we all walk away from this with—what was that figure you quoted?” Robyn braced her hands against the steering wheel, arching an eyebrow. “Jack-fucking-all.”

As laughter erupted from inside the vehicle, Torchwick snarled and slammed the driver’s door in Robyn’s face, stomping around to the back of the snowcrawler.

“Dickering’s another word for _haggling_ ,” he growled. “Only applies if you’re talking about _money._ Idiots.”

 _This is why I don’t work with Huntsmen,_ he fumed as he took to the sky, wishing he had a face that could express his displeasure at the feeling of cold air screaming around his plumage. _‘Oh, we’re such_ irrepressible free spirits, _no one tells_ us _what to do and we back-sass anyone who tries even if they’re footing the bill, look at us, we’re the_ heroes!’ _Professional pains in my_ goddamn ass, _that’s what they are._

It would all be worth it, though. Torchwick had spent weeks spinning his web, figuring out which warps Peridot had been seen near and hiring local teams to keep an eye out on the quiet. There was no telling which warp she would use at any given point, but she _had_ to have previously used the one near where she was based, and there were any number of people willing to talk if Torchwick was willing to pay. Hell, there were people willing to talk without him handing over a single lien, just as long as he went away in peace. The North Solitas warp had been a long shot, in his opinion, but he supposed it made a certain sense if Peridot really did have a ship—there’d be no one around to see her take off all the way up here.

Scapolite, though, now _there_ was a wrinkle. The word out on her was that she was a damaged Gem in need of a wellness check. What was she doing in the company of Ozpin’s renegade loyalist? Something didn’t fit. _Several_ somethings didn’t fit, but that was par for the course, nothing worth getting worked up about. It was not, much to Torchwick’s displeasure, his first time playing underworld proxy for the oh-so-virtuous Professor Ozpin. He knew the score, even respected the logic behind the miserly way his erstwhile employer parcelled out information. He still felt the occasional urge to at least _try_ choking the life out of him, even if it wouldn’t work.

_Be satisfying enough to watch him cough up what I’m owed this time. Retirement’s really done a number on the old bastard. He’s got so little left to bargain with, it’s almost sad._

His hawk’s eye had been trained on the trail of footprints below, but now it locked on to the two dots of colour at its end—deep violet and bright green. At least Scapolite had the sense she was formed with and was wearing white, though Torchwick still thought he wore it better.

 _Get to Peridot’s base camp, set up an observation post, snap a few pictures and give Himself a call. Then it’s back to business as usual._ The thought warmed him, and if he hadn’t presently had a beak, he might have even smiled.

Torchwick dropped back, stretching his wings in a glide that kept him roughly hovering over the snowcrawler that had been dutifully trundling after him. As he’d hoped, Robyn understood and kept rolling in the same direction, remaining just out of sight of the two Gems ahead of them. Soon enough, he caught sight of what he’d bet money was their destination—a shallow divot in a line of cliffs so frosted-over it resembled an ice shelf. It wasn’t the formation itself that caught his eye so much as the difficulty he had looking directly at it, like it somehow didn’t fit with the rest of what he was seeing.

_Hah. Even Homeworld never took that into account. ‘What would a Zircon know about stealth tech?’ Nothing, but a one-eyed Gem knows a thing or two about how things look without depth perception. But sure, brush me off._

The way the light bent around what must surely be the foretold ship, Torchwick realised with an abrupt deflation of his mood, would render it invisible to anyone with functional binocular vision. Hell, up close, Torchwick would have had more trouble detecting it. But from afar, with his eye as keen as that of the bird of prey he resembled, the cloaking field created a wavery, out-of-focus patch that was clearly no natural optical illusion born of the dim lighting on the pristine white of the snowfield.

He tucked into a shallow dive, pacing the snowcrawler for a few yards before tilting his wings to slow himself. Robyn braked, the snowcrawler coming to a stop just before he did, alighting on his own two properly-shaped feet with more relief than he’d ever outwardly display. He’d never understand how so many of his species could willingly spend time in other forms. To him, it felt like zipping himself up into something else’s skin.

Torchwick was on the passenger side of the vehicle, and so it was Fiona who popped open her door and leaned out. “Is everything okay?”

“We’re coming up on their camp,” Torchwick said briskly, approaching; he looked over Fiona’s head to meet Robyn’s eyes. “There’s no cover ahead. We’ll have to hoof it and hope for the best.”

Robyn nodded, pressing a button on the dash and silencing the snowcrawler’s engine with a mechanical sigh. “Alright. Anything else we should know?”

He sucked in air between his teeth. _“Weeeell,_ they’ve got a cloaked spaceship.”

“A what,” Fiona asked flatly.

“Yup.” He called out his cane in a burst of orange energy, whipping it up and resting the length against his shoulder. “We hang back and observe unless they try firing that up. The second the engines kick on, we’ll have to jump ’em.”

Robyn narrowed her eyes at him, but Joanna beat her to the punch.

“This isn’t good, is it?”

 _“This_ is for your _own_ good,” Torchwick emphasised. “Stop the ship, catch the Gems, cake and ice cream for all. _Don’t_ stop the ship, and…” He shrugged, masking his own rising unease.

He had _,_ after all, worked for Ozpin before. He knew that, like most people Torchwick credited with an ounce of common sense, Ozpin was on the paranoid side. ‘We believe she may have the means to leave Remnant’ said to Torchwick that Qrow had overheard the tail end of a rumour suggesting someone had tried cobbling a ship together and Ozpin wasn’t willing to discount the possibility. But the Authority didn’t let its shipwrights go any further than the Prime Colonies; there was no one on Remnant with the know-how to build a damn _spaceship,_ or even a sufficiently-powerful engine that didn’t rely on Dust for propulsion! Damn it, Ozpin’s worst-case scenarios weren’t ever supposed to be _accurate!_

Torchwick entertained himself with a fantasy of grabbing both ends of the Demantoid’s scarf and just _yanking_ as he pulled out his scroll, turning away from the snowcrawler. “Get together everything you need for a stakeout. It’s gonna be a long night.”

The words were barely out of his mouth when he heard a soft buzzing sound through the wind. He looked up and saw a small, sleek drone jetting overhead.

“Shit!” He dove into the snowcrawler, pulling a yelp from Fiona as she flung herself out of the way, falling practically into Robyn’s lap. “Doors shut, mouths shut, don’t move!”

How hot would the engine have still been? Could the freezing chill of Solitas have cooled it down quickly enough to prevent the drone from detecting it? Maybe it wasn’t even outfitted for thermal readings. Was it high enough up that its optic might miss the one spot of white that was different from the others? Were their tracks hidden well enough in the near-darkness?

They remained there, silent and still, as the seconds ticked by. At the minute mark, May slowly reached for the handle of her door, glancing at Robyn, who raised an eyebrow questioningly at Torchwick.

 _Slow,_ he mouthed.

She jerked her head in a tiny nod, slowly opening the door just far enough to see out. Then a little farther, poking her head out into the cold.

“All clear,” she said at last, pulling sighs of relief from the organic occupants of the snowcrawler. The first few digits of Ozpin’s number were still keyed into Torchwick’s scroll, so he picked up where he left off, tuning out Fiona’s objections as the woman fought for space.

Until another out-of-place sound interrupted his efforts and Fiona’s words both: a teeth-rattling mechanical hum he hadn’t heard in nearly six thousand years.

“No, no, _no,”_ he growled, jamming his scroll into a pocket.

Robyn’s eyes widened. “Is that—?”

“The ship’s start-up sequence! Screw stealth, we need to get there now!”

Fiona scrambled off of her precarious perch and into the back of the snowcrawler, buying Robyn the room she needed to fire up the engine and send the whole machine jolting into motion. This time she switched on the headlights, powerful beams of yellow-tinged light illuminating a wide field in front of them.

Snowcrawlers were built for mobility, not comfort, and even Torchwick found himself grabbing hold of what an old associate of his called _the oh-shit handle_ above the door as the vehicle’s treads tore roughly through the icy ground, grinding the packed surface of the snow into a fine powder that fanned out around them. _“Fuck,_ I don’t know how long it’ll take to get going,” he growled, kicking the underside of the dashboard. “Old ones took a good ten minutes for a cold boot in atmo at that size.”

“Shouldn’t this be the same tech? Maybe it’ll be slower now it’s older,” Robyn suggested.

“When you’re gonna live forever, you build for functional integrity. Who wants to replace all their stuff once a century?”

“Gems,” she muttered.

“Mortals,” he shot back.

The snowcrawler crested the short rise leading up to the base of the cliffs. “There!” Torchwick said, pointing, and bit back another curse—it wouldn’t do to lapse into Adamant in front of organic witnesses. It was a narrow thing to keep it from slipping out, though, for Peridot’s ship was no longer cloaked. Its sleek, birdlike shape gleamed mockingly in the snowcrawler’s headlights. Torchwick was no expert on ships, but this wasn’t a design he’d seen before. It was new. Which meant either someone on Remnant had finally cracked spaceflight, or at least they thought they had, or else…

Grimly, he summoned a bag of Ice Dust rounds, loading a few into Melodic Cudgel. If the ship ran on Dust, it’d never clear the atmosphere. If it ran on combustion, then he’d just have to turn down the heat. And if it was something outside his layperson’s understanding of engineering, he’d have to hope one of the hapless in-over-their-heads organics around him came up with an idea.

“We stop the ship,” he repeated. “I _do not_ care what it takes.”

“We’re Huntresses, not mercenaries,” May said sharply from the back. “No killing.”

“Then I’ll tell you when to cover your eyes,” he snapped, gripping his weapon tightly.

“Torchwick…” Robyn’s voice was as low as she could pitch it and still be heard over the noise, laced with warning.

At least the rest of what he heard from the back of the vehicle was a promising array of weapons-ready noises. They’d better turn out to be more competent than his last batch of hired help.

“Get ready to move!” Robyn ordered; they were bearing down fast on the launch site, the whine of the ship’s engines growing to an almost unbearable volume. Torchwick was thankful he didn’t have eardrums to rupture—though he did wonder how his alleged backup were going to fare. Robyn seemed to be powering through. He spared a glance at the backseat and found Joanna and May wearing similar stoic expressions to their leader’s. He couldn’t quite get a read on Fiona’s face, as she was busy fitting a pair of oversized earplugs into place.

Torchwick filed the observation away even as Robyn hit the brakes, throwing the snowcrawler into park and flinging her door open in almost the same motion. Torchwick bailed a heartbeat later, and he could hear the others piling out of the vehicle behind him.

Peridot stood on the ship’s small loading ramp, an array of swords on wires fanning around her. She was flanked by two walking versions of the drone Torchwick had seen overhead earlier, deceptively-spindly legs supporting sleek rounded bodies.

 _“Oh,_ they’re _robonoids,”_ he sighed—organics didn’t give their robots legs, as a rule, though he wasn’t sure why. But robonoids were notoriously fragile, unlike most Gem tech; too many moving parts. There couldn’t be many remaining on Remnant from the pre-War era.

_Not liking this math. Not liking it at all._

“Step away from the ship!” Robyn shouted, taking aim with her— _crossbow._ Oh, of _course._

“I am sorry, but I cannot do that!” Peridot called. “Please back away from the launch zone for your own safety!”

Torchwick scoffed. “Kid, you might wanna get your priorities straight!” _Don’t see Scapolite. Must be in the cockpit._ “She’s stalling—we don’t have time to negotiate!”

He raised his cane, popped the sight, and fired, knocking one of the robonoids over in a shower of sparks and sprouting icicles. He didn't know if they were actually armed or just there for show, but he’d seen what a plasma bolt could do to flesh, and it wasn’t pretty.

“Move up!” Robyn yelled, nailing the other robonoid point-blank in its forward optic. Alright, he could warm up to the crossbow.

Even at this distance, he could see Peridot’s eyes widen in alarm as she took in her situation: her backup already eliminated, five hostiles charging towards her, and her only avenue of retreat an entry point she was tasked with protecting. Then her expression hardened. She held out her hands palms-out; her swords snapped out of their slow rotation behind her, pivoting sharply so their points were aimed squarely at Torchwick and Robyn’s Huntresses.

The smart thing, of course, would be to hang back and pepper her with ranged attacks. There had to be a limit as to how far those swords could go. But their primary objective wasn’t to take down Peridot—it was to stop the ship from taking off, and they didn’t have a good chance of doing that from outside. It was _possible;_ the fact that Peridot was out here and not snug inside was proof enough of that. But the odds weren’t in Torchwick’s favour.

_Never seem to be, these days. Ain’t it grand when stupid’s your only option?_

Torchwick stopped the first sword heading their way with a blast of Ice Dust, intercepted another with a swipe of his cane. Robyn ducked and tumbled out of the way of each blow, somehow managing to keep pressing forward even as she was forced to dodge. The others had formed a wall, spinning their staves to knock away the striking swords. Joanna yelped as one of the blades bit into the wood of her weapon, carving a deep wound.

The sound of the ship’s engines grew steadily higher in pitch. Torchwick guessed that was a bad sign.

_Running out of time…!_

He put on a fresh burst of speed, no longer bothering to keep pace with the others. Peridot was backing away, still directing her swords, but something approaching relief had started creeping over her face. She thought she’d won. And then, and _then,_ she turned her back. Torn between fear and fury, Torchwick saw red.

And Peridot’s Gemstone.

“Got you,” he snarled. Another noise had joined the deafening symphony: the mechanical grind of the loading ramp, slowly lifting away from the ground. Torchwick slid to a stop, lining his cane’s reticle up with the centre facet. One simple shot. He could make this, easy.

Then something struck him mid-back, a burst of pain flaring at the spot. He stumbled, doubling over, and the shot went wide, crystallising on the edge of the hatch opening.

“Wh—” he choked out before his face hit the snow, a knee on his back.

He thought he heard a voice behind him, but even his ears could no longer pick anything out over the scream of the engines, the explosive roar as they finally ignited. He saw figures—Fiona, Robyn, one of the others based on height and weapon, falling back from where they’d rushed ahead, scrambling to get away from the blast of intense heat that vaporised the snow, clouds of steam billowing outward.

Snarling, Torchwick braced his arms and bucked up, knocking whichever Huntress who thought she had him pinned right off of his back. He raised his cane, firing blindly into the steam, not bothering to flee as it reached him, soaking his clothes and hair with scalding water. He already knew it was hopeless, driven more by fury than even desperation as he emptied every last Dust round in a line along the ship’s probable trajectory as the sounds of the engine faded. And then at last he saw the lights above him, growing smaller and fainter by the second.

“Damn it!” Torchwick slammed his cane against the ground, turning and striding out of the fading clouds of cooling steam. He had no idea what he must have looked like, but Robyn sure didn’t look unimpressed this time. Fiona was kneeling next to Joanna, who was crouched on the ground; the Faunus was packing snow against a steam burn on the other Huntress’s neck.

His eyes locked onto May, who raised her chin defiantly as he stormed towards her.

“I told you,” she said, half-shouting for the sake of her abused ears, “we’re not merc— _gugh!”_

His fist slammed into her jaw, knocking her flat.

“May!” One of the other Huntresses cried out, but he couldn’t make out who through the thrumming, hot feeling in his head, radiating out from his Gemstone.

 _“You,”_ he growled, pointing at her with the handle of his cane. “You _absolute—_ do you have _any_ idea what you just did!?”

“My _job,”_ she spat, clutching at her face.

“Torchwick!” It wasn’t so much Robyn’s voice that got through to him as the _click_ of a primed crossbow beside his ear. He froze, still fuming, but straightened up, turning to face her as May struggled to her feet.

“You were going to shatter her!” May forced out through gritted teeth.

“Oh come on, you don’t know that!”

“It’s not a risk we could take,” Robyn said, lowering her weapon. “Part of our responsibility as Huntresses is to preserve Gemstones.”

 _“Oh,_ you were avoiding _risk,”_ Torchwick yelled to the sky, spreading his hands wide. “Yeah, that makes _perfect_ sense. That’s why you _let the damn ship take off!”_

Robyn’s eyes narrowed. “We may have taken your lien, Torchwick, but we’re not like you.”

“Oh yeah, no, just a bunch of _law-abiding citizens_ here.” He pointed at Fiona. “Explains those earplugs. Remind me, what kind of monster uses loud, explosive weaponry again? The two-legged ones in military gear?”

Fiona reached up and yanked the plugs out, turning red.

“Mantle’s ‘ _hometown heroes’,_ ” Torchwick sneered. “I am so _sick_ of high-and-mighty hypocrites. At least I own what I am. Four _brave_ vigilantes and one scheming criminal, and who was the only one willing to do what it took to save this sorry excuse of a world?”

It was Joanna, the one who’d shown sense before, who spoke up and dashed his last remaining hope of getting through. “Whatever comes down on us for letting that ship get off the ground, we did the right thing. That’s all we can do.”

Robyn smiled faintly, giving an approving nod. “Well said.”

Torchwick could literally _see_ the way the nobility and self-righteousness crept into them from there, straightening their spines and tinging their gazes with disdain as they rested on him.

“You’re all morons,” he declared bluntly. “Have fun going extinct. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to make the worst scroll call of my life to my,” he made a show of counting the Huntresses, _“fifth_ least-favourite person on the planet.”

“Aren’t you forgetting—?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Torchwick flapped a hand as he turned his back on them, walking away. “You’ll get paid. Feel free to spend it all in one place! Life is short! And it just got _so_ much shorter…”

* * *

On the bridge of Peridot’s scout ship, Scapolite stared fixedly at a small display which showed the view behind them. The snowfield pulled away, further and further, and then she was looking at Solitas—and the seas around, Vytal, the City of Vale, the edge of the Vacuan desert, the jungles of south Anima and…

There. Just the westernmost coast, but that was the only part that mattered, the thin strip of green on Menagerie that marked Kuo Kuana.

The one mercy she could offer them was that they’d never know the end was coming.

“Did you get something in your eyes?” Peridot asked from _way_ too close beside her. Scapolite jumped, not having noticed her approach.

“Y-yeah.” She wiped away the droplets rolling down her face. “I guess I must have.”

Torchwick was tempted to use the double doors to make a proper entrance, but that would mean unhanding his weapon in what was arguably enemy territory. Besides, there was a swagger to a double-door entrance. Fitting for the coming of a conquering antihero. But Torchwick, much though it grated, was not returning victorious from the wars. He was slinking in with his tail between his legs, thoroughly routed, and everyone already knew it.

He opened one door just far enough to pass through without a squeeze, and he left it that way as he crossed the empty expanse of the main hall.

“Last time I was allowed inside Beacon, the world was ending,” he commented, looking around, letting his voice echo as he avoided directing his words towards the solitary figure sitting on the edge of the stage. “Seems like there might be a pattern. Today’s even an anniversary, isn’t it? Not the big one, but still.”

Ozpin did not reply. When Torchwick glanced at him, he realised the other Gem wasn’t even looking at him, his gaze seemingly fixed on the cane laid across his lap.

_No nauseating optimism. Not even a snappy comeback. And no Qrow, either._

“Reliving the glory days?” Torchwick asked when he’d finally closed to something approaching appropriate conversation distance. He gestured at the empty, unlit stage, just in case Ozpin proved similarly dim today.

“Glory is incredibly overrated,” Ozpin murmured, not looking up; only the hall’s excellent acoustics allowed his words to reach Torchwick at all. His eyes were unfocused, distant. Torchwick subtly adjusted his grip on his cane as he realised where Ozpin’s hands were on his own weapon: one laid loosely atop the shaft, but the other curled around the handle, fingers tucked beneath the lever that served as a knuckle-guard.

“Yeah, I’m not doing this,” Torchwick said abruptly, turning on the spot and walking towards the steps up to the stage.

Ozpin had finally raised his head at Torchwick’s outburst. He tracked the Zircon’s movements silently as he approached, now on the same level. Torchwick stopped a good six or seven feet away from him, looking down at him. At the strange _absence_ in his expression, like Ozpin wasn’t even present behind his own eyes. Then, sighing, he mimicked Ozpin’s position, swinging his legs over the edge of the stage and holding Melodic Cudgel ready in his lap.

“This is the part where you pay me,” Torchwick prompted. “I made a good-faith effort to stop Peridot from taking off. I have witnesses. I’ll put out my own eye before I willingly talk to any of them again, but I can give you their numbers if you want to check up on me.”

“I believe you. I do need their contact information, however.”

Torchwick raised an eyebrow, then barked out a laugh as he understood. “Oh, damn. You’re actually gonna try, aren’t you? They’re Huntresses-cum-vigilantes who scrap with the military and advocate for the poor—which I’m pretty sure are equal crimes in the eyes of Atlesian law. They’ve got good PR for rabble-rousers, but the only people who’re gonna be more willing to take their word for what happened today than mine live in the shittiest parts of Mantle. So unless you’re looking to raise a modern-day peasant army, you’re fucked.” Torchwick sigh, looking out over the hall. “We’re _all_ fucked.”

“My reputation will count for something. With my voice added to theirs—”

“Oh come _on,_ Ozpin.” Torchwick shook his head. “Two hundred years. There isn’t an organic alive whose _grandfather_ remembers when you had any real pull. You know what you are? One more Huntsman grasping for relevance. The one Huntsman, in fact, famous for sitting in his office filing paperwork instead of going out and fighting the good fight. So sad, isn’t it, how some people define themselves through their jobs, pining away after retirement, to the point they’d do _anything_ to go back to the way things used to be.”

Torchwick half-expected this strange, distant version of Ozpin to flinch at that. Instead, he registered no reaction at all.

“We were supposed to have time,” Torchwick said after a moment. “We could have gotten evidence if we’d just had a few more minutes.”

“I could have caught Peridot if I hadn’t been Fused with Yang when we met her, or if Chrysoberyl had kept a level head. Ruby could have caught her if I’d communicated faster. Scapolite might never have joined forces with her if Qrow and I hadn’t arrived at the worst possible moment and sent her running. You did what you could.”

Emotion had finally worked its way into Ozpin’s expression, his voice. Torchwick recoiled from it.

“Are you actually trying to comfort me? Because you’re doing the opposite of that. I feel physically repulsed. We’re not friends. Play the saint on your own time. We both know there’s only bastards in this room.”

Ozpin inclined his head, and Torchwick felt a flood of conflicted relief as his gaze sharpened, his lips turning up in a small, secretive smile. “Fair enough, Mr. Torchwick. I meant no insult.”

“You can’t insult me. I don’t respect you enough. You can lie through your goddamn teeth, though. Peridot’s from off-planet, isn’t she?”

“I never lied to you about her origins.”

Torchwick paused, replaying the scroll call in his head. “No. You sure didn’t, did you.”

“It’s something I prefer to avoid.”

“Yeah, sure.” Torchwick stood, holding out his free hand. “The _girl,_ Ozpin.”

Ozpin held out his own hand, the air above it shimmering. Two green-bubbled Gemstones hovered over his palm, orbiting each other in a slow circle. Their colours were hard to see, but Torchwick recognised their shapes easily.

“Morganite and Cassiterite, both intact,” Ozpin pledged. “Do remind Miss Neopolitan that the assassination of world leaders remains a crime.”

“Please. That was five hundred years ago.”

“And I daresay she would just as soon not serve an additional sentence.”

“And who’s going to lock her up? The Diamond Authority?” Torchwick stooped and snatched the Gemstones out of the air. “They’re just gonna shatter her. And me. And you. And, you know, _everyone.”_

He tucked Neo’s Gemstones away inside his own, tipping his hat. “Pleasure doing business with you,” he said in a cheery voice dripping with insincerity, stepping right off the edge of the stage and landing gracefully below, smoothly straightening and settling into a strut in one practiced motion.

“Torchwick.”

Leave it to the old _not-technically-a-man_ to ruin a perfectly good exit. He rolled his eyes heavenward, letting out a loud sigh before turning, spreading his hands wide in question.

“Why have you been stealing Dust?”

Torchwick couldn’t help himself. He laughed. “I was gonna bomb the shit outta the barrier, bust in, and take Neo back.”

“I trust that is no longer in the cards,” Ozpin said evenly, smiling.

“Oh, don’t worry. I hear there’s a war coming. Dust is going to be in high demand, and I’ve built up quite a supply. Remember that when the time comes to stock up for whatever insane plan you’re hatching.”

“What exactly do you think lien will buy you at this prophesied end of days?”

Torchwick smirked. “One hell of a bang to go out with.” As he walked out, he couldn’t quite resist twisting the knife. “Happy Samhain, Professor.”

Cruel? Possibly. But imagining the look that might be on Ozpin’s face now that Torchwick couldn’t see him? It went a long way to salve his freshest wounds.

* * *

Ozpin had _meant_ to spend a little time in his workroom before beginning the walk over to Taiyang’s, taking advantage of the empty house to sort out his thoughts and see if somewhere in the back of his head there was a plan taking shape. Zwei had other ideas, though, meeting him at the warp and trying to herd him directly around to the front of the house, blocking his way when he tried to go inside and nipping at his heels when he didn’t move fast enough. Ozpin did not deign to pretend he was a true obstacle as the others often did, and that was when Zwei resorted to the canine nuclear option: barking. Loudly and incessantly.

 _“Fine,_ then. Have it your way. I still haven’t forgiven you for making a mockery of my security, you know,” Ozpin said, glancing down. “And your actions today have not endeared you to me.”

Zwei cocked his head to meet the Gem’s eyes, his stubby legs moving comically fast to keep up with Ozpin’s long stride.

“I know you’re a shepherd, but you must realise I’m not a sheep. Or indeed any sort of animal.”

Zwei made a _chuff_ sound in his throat, turning back to fix his gaze on the road ahead.

“I would have come on my own. It’s only three o’ clock. No, three-thirty. Even so…” Ozpin bit back the rest of his complaints as it struck him that he was attempting to converse with a dog. “Oh, never mind.”

The walk had done precious little to clear his head thus far, and so Ozpin remained as unsettled as he’d been since departing for Beacon. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was trapped in a dream, too-bright and filmy, flimsy, the world around him existing at one remove from his reality. Dissociation, or rather, its prelude. He’d been fighting it off since Torchwick called. A marginal improvement on the panic which had overtaken him as part of Chrysoberyl, something almost kin to the detachment required for clear thought in the midst of turmoil. But this was not clarity. It felt instead like his own thoughts were trapped behind dirty glass, murky and muddled and entirely apart from the rest of him, his emotions sharp yet muted like a distant scream.

 _Am I not the same Gem who fought for the Rebellion, who led the Hunt for thousands of years?_ Unconsciously, he clenched his right hand into a fist, nails digging into his palm. _When did I become so fragile?_

His allies would often tease him for his over-vigilance. Now the universe itself was soundly mocking him for lowering his guard. He knew better than most that life was a staring match with disaster, and yet he had carelessly allowed himself to blink.

This was his fault.

If he had clung to power instead of stepping down when it was demanded of him—if he had convinced more Gems to remain at Beacon rather than following Summer’s example and walking their own paths—if he had set aside his misgivings and Summer’s and pushed her to establish the victorious Rebellion as a true world power, right at the very beginning when their tech was bleeding-edge and their authority was absolute—

Then they would be the _only_ world power, godlike tyrants ruling over Remnant’s people, and then how were they any better than _her?_

As they turned onto the gravel road that dead-ended at Tai’s house, Zwei moved away from Ozpin, eschewing the uneven rocks in favour of the roadside, paws crunching through layers of dry, fallen leaves. It was well and truly autumn, now, the last day of October. The day Vale traditionally celebrated its harvest festival, Samhain. Summer’s End.

Fourteen years to the day since Ruby’s birth and Summer’s death, and Ozpin had failed them both.

* * *

“I don’t think I’m very good at this,” Pyrrha admitted, staring up at the scorecards displayed on the TV.

“Ah, you’ll get there! Practice makes perfect.” Velvet nudged her shoulder companionably. “What d’you say we play a few rounds for fun when the tourney’s over? Or we can all play an 8-man match.”

“Maybe. Oh, here, Yang.” Pyrrha frowned slightly as she handed her controller off. “Aren’t there going to be nine of us, though? I can sit out…”

 _“No,”_ Ruby, Yang, Qrow, and Taiyang all said in unison.

“Oz is strictly forbidden from playing 8-man. That many opponents makes some weird switch in his brain go _chhk_ and he goes from being crap at this game to _amazing_ ,” Yang explained.

“Well, 8-man is kind of a button-masher’s paradise,” Velvet said, shrugging. “Unless you’re dealing with _really_ good players.”

Pyrrha tilted her head, smiling. “I am tentatively intrigued by this ‘8-man’ of which you speak.”

“Thought that’d get your attention.”

“Oh, how _dare_ you try to go easy on me,” Taiyang said as Yang chose her character. “Play your main!”

Yang raised her eyebrows, turning towards him and staring him down as she blindly moved her cursor to the correct square. “So you have chosen _death.”_

“You, uh, this family’s pretty competitive, huh…?” Jaune’s eyes had gone just a little wide as he glanced between them.

Pyrrha smacked him lightly on the arm. “You’re one to talk, Mr. Seven Sisters.”

“You haven’t _seen_ competitive yet,” Ruby said. “Weiss is in the next bracket.”

“Hey! I am the _least_ competitive person in this room! By far!”

Taiyang’s living room didn’t contain extravagant amounts of seating—Yang, in fact, had carried her beanbag chair over to make room for six between the couch and chairs already present, and then had settled herself on the carpet, declaring it the One True Gaming Chair. This had left Qrow perched on the arm of the couch, next to Tai, and perhaps that was why he heard the door open when the others did not, intent as they were upon the match unfolding on screen. It certainly explained why he was the first to notice Zwei trot past, nub a-wiggling as he headed for Yang in her conveniently dog-accessible floor spot, and the first to look up to see Ozpin.

Ozpin, whose smile was just a little too taut, whose eyes didn’t sweep the room so much as dart around it.

Qrow stood as quickly as he dared. “Hey,” he said; neutral, pleasantly surprised, but not _too_ surprised for someone he’d been expecting. “Let’s talk in the kitchen, there’s a whole thing goin’ on out here.”

Ozpin didn’t offer any protest, turning wordlessly for the doorway so that he was through it with Qrow right behind him by the time Ruby thought to chirp out a “Hi, Ozpin!” in their wake. Once they were out of sight, Qrow grabbed Ozpin by his lapel and half-dragged him over to the far end of the kitchen, near the sink.

“What the hell happened?” Qrow demanded. He kept his voice soft, but above a whisper, counting on the noise from the living room to cover their conversation.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you…”

Qrow just _stared_ at Ozpin, who trailed off. The not-right smile faltered.

“That was, bar none, the _worst_ job of lyin’ I ever heard outta your mouth,” Qrow said, low and intense. “That call you got, back home. Torchwick?”

“Peridot is off-planet,” Ozpin said flatly, knocking Qrow’s feeble sense of optimism over the edge with a rope around its neck. “Scapolite is with her. As is the Record, and whatever sensitive information it may contain. I expect that allowed Peridot to move up her timetable considerably.”

“No. _No._ We had every Gem Huntsman on the planet looking for Scapolite!”

“And it wasn’t enough.”

“What if—what if we’d had them look for Peridot, too?” Qrow only now realised he was still gripping Ozpin’s jacket and let go, running his hands through his hair as he paced. “That would have helped. That would _have_ to have helped! Fuck, why didn’t we do that!?”

“Because we discussed it and agreed that extra hands weren’t worth the chaos news of an Authority scout in our midst would surely wreak. Qrow, calm down.” Oddly, Qrow’s distress seemed to have the opposite effect on Ozpin, steadying him, centring him. “What’s done is done. We’ll get through this. We’ve gotten through everything else before now.”

“Do you have a plan?” Qrow asked— _pleaded._

The silence before Ozpin answered was as damning as his reply. “No.”

Qrow peeked around the corner into the living room as loud cries of _“Oooh!”_ rang out. Yang’s narrowed, focused eyes contrasted her shit-eating grin, while Taiyang was bent nearly double over his controller, arms braced on his knees. Ruby was bouncing in place, cheering them both on, Weiss’s hands balled into fists beside her as she watched the screen, saying _something_ he couldn’t hear; Velvet was yelling something about a hammer that vanished beneath Jaune’s cry of “There it is! There it is!” Next to him, Pyrrha wore an expression best described as ‘bemused delight’ as she glanced around the room.

“We gotta tell ’em,” he said hoarsely.

Ozpin came up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Not today,” he whispered. “It will be weeks, maybe even months, before anything comes of this. We can spare one day.”

Blindly, barely-aware, Qrow’s hand came up to cover his. “Not today,” he echoed.

* * *

“Huh. I guess you _aren’t_ that competitive,” Ruby said, crossing her arms and shaking her head.

“Wh—I—I don’t play a lot of video games, alright!?” Weiss’s face was the very picture of affront as she turned it towards the hybrid. “You lost _your_ match, too!”

“Hey, it was _really_ close, though,” said Jaune, the victor of that round.

“In other words, the opposite of,” Yang waved a hand vaguely at the TV, _“that._ Damn, Weiss.”

“You know, there is the option of complimenting the winner instead of insulting whoever lost,” Taiyang suggested, watching as Weiss’s face grew steadily redder, her eyes narrowing. Ruby half-expected cartoon steam to pour out of her ears.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Mr. Two-Stock Suicide?”

“Well, you really _did_ only win because I sucked out.” Taiyang shrugged. “Anyone who’s ever played a match against you could guess that.”

Yang’s jaw dropped. She braced one hand against the floor so she could punch his thigh, causing him to yelp and scrunch tighter against the arm of the couch. “Hey!”

“‘Hey’ yourself! Don’t punch your host!”

“Good match, Qrow,” Weiss managed from between gritted teeth.

“Yup. Thanks for not bein’ a sore loser about it.” Qrow flashed a quick smirk at her, glancing around the room. “Uh, who’s up next…?”

“Me,” Yang snapped, snatching the controller out of his hands and scooting forward. “Move over, birb-man, it’s rabbit season.”

“I don’t remember those cartoons ending too well for the hunter,” Velvet said lightly, taking the controller Weiss offered her. “Sure you don’t wanna different one-liner?”

Pyrrha sniffed the air. “What smells like chocolate?”

“Did I even _have_ real cocoa?” Taiyang asked. Ruby followed his gaze to the kitchen doorway, where Ozpin was leaning with a mug in one hand.

“No.” Ozpin did not elaborate.

Taiyang nodded slowly. “Okay.”

“I think you might have a problem,” Qrow told the other Gem; having been ousted from his spot on the floor, he’d come to perch on the other couch arm now, next to Ruby.

“Just the one?” Yang asked without a beat of hesitation. “I could name several. I don’t even have to think about _no no NO—!_ ” A distinctive combination of explosion and death cry sounded from the TV. “Damn it!”

“That _is_ what tends to happen when one fights distracted,” Ozpin said mildly.

“Yes, _Mom,”_ Yang muttered, wriggling to get more comfortable while she waited to respawn.

“Was that really a _motherly_ thing to say?” Weiss asked Ruby in a whisper.

“How would I know?”

“Wait, wait.” Jaune’s brow furrowed. “Am I playing Qrow next?”

“Oh, kid.” Qrow gave him a shark-like grin. “‘Playing’ ain’t the word _I’d_ use.”

Jaune blanched.

“You’ll do fine, Jaune,” Pyrrha assured him, smiling as she patted his arm. “We’re all rooting for you!”

Jaune looked around the room. Ruby raised her hands and wobbled them like a balance scale, wincing apologetically. Taiyang was giving him a thumbs-up, Ozpin had evidently found something fascinating at the bottom of his mug, and Yang and Velvet were too focused on their match to weigh in.

“Fine,” Weiss sighed, rolling her eyes. “But only because I want to see Qrow get his.”

“Very big of you,” Qrow drawled as Jaune brightened. “And you!” He stretched his body along the back of the sofa to smack Taiyang upside the head. “What kinda lousy ‘best friend’ are _you_ , anyway!?”

“Ow! What is with you people and solving your problems with violence!?”

“Oh, you call that violence? I’ll show ya violence!”

“Dude! You keep that up, I won’t be able to put the cake together!”

“Not my problem!”

 _“Qrow!”_ Ruby’s voice was a threatening growl, Ozpin’s a sharp command. It was hard to say which hit Qrow harder as he slithered away from Taiyang at speed.

“Cake eatin’ freaks,” he grumbled, crossing his arms.

“Yeah, so I’m feelin’ real good about my chances,” Jaune told Pyrrha.

“I’m sure both of you will do very well,” Pyrrha said diplomatically.

“Nuh-uh.” Qrow pointed at her. “You picked your side, you lose with it.”

A muted, strangled-sounding laugh sounded from the direction of the kitchen, but when Ruby looked Ozpin was calmly sipping at his cocoa. She thought, though, that she saw Qrow twitch out of the corner of her eye.

_Weird._

“All good, Qrow?” she asked him quietly.

“Huh?” He did a pretty good job of looking confused, but Ruby had taken him off-guard, alarm and… _something_ flashing over his features before they folded into the appropriate expression. “Yeah, why? Something up?”

Guilt, Ruby realised. The _something_ had been guilt.

“I know today’s not just about me for you guys,” she murmured beneath the other conversations in the room. “It’s okay to admit you miss Mom.” She swallowed. “I wish she could be here, too.”

“Oh, Ruby.” Qrow reached out and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her against him. “Don’t you worry about any of that. She…losing her was hard, but you mean the world to us. Always have.”

She squeezed him tight, and he ruffled her hair with his other hand.

“Happy birthday, kiddo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final round of the Smash tournament was Qrow vs. Velvet. Velvet carried the day by revealing Zelda as a second main at the last minute, while Qrow, despite the panic-induced hyper-focus that saw him blow right through his first two matches, screwed himself by trying to show off with new arrival Sephiroth. That neutral B is great and all, but Din's Fire has better range...and Velvet's mastered the lightning kick's sweet spot.
> 
> If you were surprised to see Robyn and her Happy Huntresses, uh, yeah, me too, actually. I did not think far enough ahead about who Torchwick would reach out to in *Solitas* until after I'd already committed to Penny having hidden her spaceship there. I mean, they *are* based on some of fiction's most famous thieves. I don't think I took them too far over the line compared to canon. They've just had to be a little more flexible since they've got a lot less of a legal cushion to fall back on in terms of 'well, we ARE Huntresses' on Gem!Remnant, where the role and authority of Huntsmen is greatly reduced.
> 
> Next time: a chapter with virtually no basis in any existing SU or RWBY episode. I guess it's sort of The Message? Maybe? If you squint *really hard*? Well, anyway. See you then! Thanks for reading!


	17. Likely Allies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Qrow and Ozpin break the bad news, and...it could have gone worse. In response, Remnant's scattered Huntsmen hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Meanwhile, a solar system or several over, Scapolite tries to adjust to Era 2, and re-adjust to life among her people. They are still her people...aren't they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, the rough outline of this chapter has been around for a long time. Long enough that some of the notes about it refer to Blake as "Lapis". Yeah, *that* hasn't been accurate since the one-shot version of chapter 1 dropped last ye—  
> ...almost...2 years ago...  
> O_O
> 
> In addition to this new chapter, I have just uploaded final revisions to all previous chapters. Typos, grammar flubs, and minor continuity errors (like Weiss mentally referring to herself as the SDC heiress in chapter 1 when in this AU she's not...) should now be gone! There have been no substantive changes. This is just a housekeeping thing; the only reason it's happening now instead of after "Season 1" wraps is to allow for eleventh-hour rereads before we dive into finale territory. *Totally* unrelated note, did you know that after a certain point MS Word will just...stop spell-checking a document? Because I sure didn't.
> 
> Alright, onward!

‘Today’, as it always must, came to an end, and the morning of November 1st saw the long-unused dining room in Ruby’s house pressed at last into service. Ozpin sat at the head of the table, his hands folded in front of him. Yang sat at his right, with Taiyang beside her; Ruby was at the foot of the table, closest to the kitchen. On the other side of the table were Dr. Oobleck and Peter Port, across from Yang and Tai respectively. Qrow stood to the right of Ozpin’s chair with his hands clasped behind him, looking every bit as grim as the Garnet himself.

Not that they were the only ones who appeared troubled. A few moments had passed since Ozpin had finished saying his piece, and since then, the collection of Huntsmen and the lone trainee had all sat in silence, as though the world would erupt into chaos the moment one of them opened their mouths. It probably would, Ruby reflected, and stood quite impulsively, turning without a word and heading into the kitchen.

“So let me get this straight,” she heard Yang say as she opened the fridge. “You’ve known about this since _yesterday? Both_ of you? And you’re _just now_ telling us?”

“What would you have done yesterday?” Ozpin asked.

Yang let out a noise of pure frustration. _“Anything!”_

“And would it have helped?”

“Maybe!”

“No,” Oobleck said. “Nothing to be done now the ship’s off-world. We can’t pursue, can’t obstruct, can’t interfere in any way. We do! not! have! the means! This is a waiting game now. _Infuriating!”_ he added, unusually sharp; it sounded like he’d thwacked the table for emphasis.

“It’s certainly not an ideal situation.” That was Port’s plummy voice. “Ozpin, old boy, why didn’t you let us take a crack at them?”

Even considering the seriousness of the situation, Ruby couldn’t keep from snorting with laughter, bracing herself against the counter as she fought to keep herself quiet. _‘Old boy’…!_

“Because we didn’t know where they _were,_ Peter,” said in the very gentle, patient tone that meant Ozpin had already held this argument in his head and won. “And neither did any other Huntsman on Remnant until noon yesterday. A team of five mobilised immediately to intercept them, but they were too late, by a matter of only minutes.”

Port _harrumph_ ed _,_ and as Ruby exited the kitchen, she saw him cross his arms, lowering his chin and closing his eyes in thought. “Unlucky. Damned unlucky.”

Taiyang’s gaze dropped to Ruby’s hands as she sat down. “Ruby, what is that?”

“A second slice of breakfast cake.” She dug into it with her fork. “Because the world might be ending and I deserve this.”

Her father opened his mouth, plainly intending to object, but closed it again without saying anything more to her. “So what are our options?” he asked, looking down the table at Ozpin.

“Marshal what forces we can. Strengthen our defenses to the best of our ability. In short, brace ourselves for the worst.”

 _“Si vis pacem, para bellum,”_ Oobleck quoted, his words heavy and tired.

“For my part, I will attempt to persuade the Valean government, at least, of the seriousness of the threat we face. I hope the time remaining to us will be enough in which to make my case.”

“Are you reaching out to them later today?” Taiyang asked.

Because she was watching for it, Ruby saw Ozpin’s hands tighten around each other. “I thought immediate action would better convey the urgency of the situation.”

Tai’s eyebrows rose. “You _already_ reached out. They didn’t listen? _Seriously?”_

“’Course not,” Qrow said bitterly; the first time he’d spoken since they’d gathered. “Since when do organics in power listen to Gems with nothin’ to offer ’em? War’s long over, world’s at peace, we’re jumping at shadows, blah, blah, blah. Can’t even get anyone higher up than an undersecretary’s secretary to answer their damn scroll.”

“Sounds like the ol’ silver tongue’s taken on a bit of tarnish,” Port observed.

Ozpin gave a rather wan smile in response. “Disuse will have that effect. As I said, we must brace ourselves for the worst-case scenario, which is that we will be facing the coming threat alone, with very few resources and very little time to work out how to put them to use.”

“What if we think outside the box on this one?” Yang suggested. “Forget official channels. Ruby—Weiss is connected, right? I hate to owe her dad anything, but if this is one of those fate-of-the-world things I can fake not hating his guts for the ten seconds it’ll take to leave the room without decking him.”

“Have you even met him?” Tai wondered.

“Don’t need to meet someone to hate ’em. Just ask the Internet.”

“Doesn’t seem like a healthy attitude.”

“No—no.” Ozpin was shaking his head; he held a hand out towards Taiyang. “Your time in this world is a finite and precious thing. Please don’t waste it standing up for Jacques Schnee. The man is as spurious as his endless flood of lawsuits.”

“O…kay, do I _want_ to know?”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Ruby interjected, answering Yang at last. “Her dad’ll never listen to her. Winter would, but I don’t know how much she could do. She’s only a lieutenant…”

“Given the rather charged relationship between the Atlesian military and our only witnesses to Peridot’s take-off, I doubt we’d see much support from her colleagues,” Ozpin agreed. “If she can be put on alert, however, in case the worst should happen…”

“We’d have someone on the inside who knows what’s going on. Someone who can plead our case for us,” Port said, nodding. “Could be useful.”

“Who _are_ these witnesses, anyway?” Taiyang asked.

“Bunch of Atlesian Huntresses infamous for givin’ the military the middle finger.” Qrow shrugged. “Mantle likes ’em, but the capital ain’t a fan, so basically we got nothin’.”

“So the plan is to try and beg some kind of support out of the kingdoms while getting ready to fight like hell and if all of us die horribly because no one believed us in time to help, at least two out of five Schnees’ll know whose manager to start shouting for.” Yang blew air out between her lips, leaning back. “I swear we used to be better at this. We did, right? I’m not imagining that?”

“No. The efficacy of Huntsmen as a whole has steadily declined over the last millennium,” Oobleck said. “We did in fact used to be better at this.”

Port reached over to give a few brisk pats to the Sphene’s arm. “Salt in the wound, Doctor.”

“Welp, that’s my limit for sitting around talking about how screwed we are.” Yang planted her hands on the table with a definitive _thump_ and stood, circling around behind Ozpin and Qrow without so much as a glance at any of them. “Lemme know when there’s something for me to do. I’ll be in the garage.”

“Are there any further suggestions?” Ozpin asked into the hush that followed Yang’s exit. It seemed to swallow his words as Qrow studied the floor, Tai, Port, and Oobleck exchanged rather desperate looks, and Ruby kept eating her cake with stoic determination.

“Then we may as well adjourn.” No one moved to stand at first, but no sooner had Ozpin’s fingers brushed the handle of his cane than there was a chorus of creaks and squeaks as the others pushed their chairs back, Ruby managing hers with her legs as she kept hold of her plate. She probably shouldn’t have bothered leaving the table when she was still eating, but everyone else was getting up and she hadn’t really thought about it and—

And it was barely 10:00 AM. There should really be a rule about disaster striking before noon.

* * *

There was no music blasting from the garage when Ruby approached the side door, which was honestly pretty worrying. Yang’s choice of music while working was usually a good gauge of her mood, and Ruby didn’t know what ‘silence’ meant. She opened the door slowly, peering inside. Yang was sitting in front of a grease-stained piece of cardboard next to Bumblebee, the casing removed from its engine and placed carefully aside. She was staring at the bike’s innards, twirling a wrench in one hand.

Ruby stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind her. She knelt down next to Yang and joined her in regarding Bumblebee’s engine.

“I don’t see anything that needs work,” she said at last, glancing up at the Gem.

“There’s always something.” Yang didn’t look at her. “I just have to find it.”

“It…really looks like you already did everything you could.”

“There’s always something,” she repeated sharply, gripping the wrench tight. “Damn it!”

She flung the wrench against the wall with a loud _bang!_ that left a dent. As it clattered on the cement floor, Yang brought her knees up to her chest and buried her face in her arms.

“I just wanna stop feeling so _angry_ all the time,” she said, muffled. “Why am I angry _now?_ It’s stupid!”

“Yang…”

“She _told_ me, Ruby!” Yang lifted her head. “She _told_ me which side she was on. She _said_ Homeworld was coming back and that she wouldn’t be with us when they did!” She threw her arms up. “Well, here they come, and there she goes! _God,_ you’d think I’d be _happy_ with that kind of honesty!”

Her arms dropped back down to her knees, hands hanging limp in front of her.

“I shouldn’t feel betrayed,” she said, “because you can’t be betrayed by someone who was never on your side, and _told you so.”_

Ruby scooched closer. “I didn’t think Scapolite’d really do it, either.”

“I guess we both need our ears checked. So that we _listen to Weiss_ next time.”

Ruby shook her head. “We all agreed, remember? No matter what, leaving Scapolite trapped would’ve been wrong. We had to let her out.”

“…Yeah.” Yang scrubbed her hands over her face. “Yeah, we did. And I guess it’s not like there’s some ends-justify-the-means thing where if we’d left her in there, Peridot wouldn’t have still been snooping around. Just…maybe we’d have had more time to catch her.”

“Or maybe we’d never have found her because we wouldn’t have gone to Merlot’s lab.”

“There’s that, too.” Yang stared down at the dun grey floor. “I just feel so _stupid_ for trying to talk her around, you know? For thinking she’d come through in the end.” She gestured emphatically, clutching at the air with her fingers. “I mean, she basically said ‘DO NOT TRUST ME’ in big capital letters! And maybe if I’d _listened,_ she’d be with us. Not, like, _happily,_ but she wouldn’t be helping _Homeworld.”_

“We were trying to help her,” Ruby insisted. “What were we gonna do, lock her up again? That’s exactly what we were trying to keep from happening to her.”

“Ugh! I don’t know. No.” Yang shook her head. “No, being a prisoner again would have killed her. But now _we’re_ the ones in the line of fire. Scapolite, Peridot, the Diamonds—I should have taken them more seriously. Right from the start, with that stupid drone in Forever Fall.”

Feeling helpless, Ruby gave a little shrug. “Even Qrow and Ozpin were only a little worried. None of us knew it would turn out like this.”

Abruptly, Ruby found herself being hugged.

“Ack, Yang! Hair!” She turned her face away from Yang’s curly mane.

“Thanks for trying to make me feel better,” Yang said into her shoulder. “Are _you_ okay?”

Ruby brought her arms up around Yang’s back. “I’m scared,” she admitted in a whisper.

“Yeah. Me too. But hey.” Ruby heard the short, sharp breaths that in a human would have been the lead-in to sobbing, but there was a quiet determination underlying the quaver in her voice that kept it from sounding hysterical. “We’re here for each other, right?”

Ruby sniffled. “Right.”

Yang hugged her impossibly tighter. “I gotchu, substrate-sister.”

Somehow, even though her ribs were being compressed into a singularity, Ruby found the breath for a laugh that felt startled out of her. She closed her eyes and let her head rest on Yang’s shoulder, a mirror image of the Ametrine.

* * *

Scapolite clenched her hands and her eyes tight shut, willing herself to remain still as the auto-patch did its work. The repair resin was uncomfortably hot as it poured over her Gemstone, filling and sealing the cracks.

A little over a week’s travel had brought them out to the outpost at Frontier 6, one of the space stations marking what had once been, and in truth still was, the outer edge of Gem territory. Frontier 6 had been abandoned after Pink Diamond made planetfall on Her colony, then brought back into use as the Authority started losing ground against the Rebellion. After the war ended, Homeworld’s forces had withdrawn entirely from this region of space. The Diamonds couldn’t garrison Frontier 6, after all, because to do so would be to admit to the empire at large that α-Pink, Remnant, was not actually under Their control—but neither could They safely send a unit to Remnant, since, well, it _wasn’t_ under Their control.

Politics were above Scapolite’s caste, and some days she was especially grateful for that.

It had taken nearly a full day of searching through old supplies to find the repair resin, and about as much time for Peridot to service the auto-patch machine, but here she finally was, getting her Gemstone healed for good. It wouldn’t be perfect—the scars left by the resin would distort her chatoyancy, might cut off access to her subspace pocket for good, and would definitely ache when exposed to extreme temperatures, based on what she’d heard from the handful of Gems she’d met who’d undergone the process. But it would stop the crack from spreading. She’d live.

Repair resin was refined from whatever organic materials were incidentally scavenged from a colony planet before the final raze or deluge to clear its surface, making it relatively rare and to be used only in dire emergencies or for Gems of higher caste. That it had been left behind at all spoke to the rush in which the Authority had pulled out from Frontier 6. Scapolite had nearly cried with relief when Peridot’s contact on ε-Blue had given them the go-ahead to proceed. Honestly, she suspected Peridot might have overstated the severity of her injury in her preliminary report. Why else would she get rubber-stamped so quickly, unless there were concerns she might not last long enough to give her own account?

“Scapolite!” Peridot dashed in, bracing herself against the rounded frame of the doorway. “There is a ship on an approach vector! Our reinforcements are here!”

“I don’t know what you want me to do about that,” Scapolite said, remaining very still in place beneath the auto-patch.

“Come with me to meet them!?”

“I’ve got to stay here until the resin sets.”

“Well, how long does that take?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been half-shattered and put together again before.”

“Oh dear. _Oh_ dear.”

“Breathe, Peridot,” Scapolite advised dryly. She froze as her words caught up to her, but Peridot didn’t seem to notice her slip, wringing her hands together.

“I suppose I shall have to meet them on my own…”

“You’ll do fine. Hey, Peridot?” she called, for the green Gem was already out the door. She poked her head back in.

“Yes?”

“Wrong language,” Scapolite said in crisp Adamant, the syllables strangely foreign on her tongue.

Peridot’s eyes rounded. “Thank you for reminding me.”

“Last thing we want is for them to think we’ve gone native,” Scapolite murmured when the other Gem had gone.

* * *

Peridot’s instructions, received from Blue Diamond Himself, had been very clear: transmit her preliminary report to a specific terminal on ε-Blue, the nearest active colony to α-Pink, and wait for a reply. As it turned out, she had not needed to wait very long at all. Someone had responded with additional orders and a verifiable command code within the Remnan hour, directing her to put in at Frontier 6 and await rendezvous.

Peridot bounced gently on her heels, clasping her hands behind her as she watched the ship from ε-Blue approach. She thought she recognised its disc-like conformation, the way the nacelles were mounted on its underside—a light assault craft, designed to be piloted by only a small crew. In fact, it looked like one of the newer, more heavily-automated models coming out of the shipyards on β-White, the ones that could even be run by a single specially-trained Gem. Strange. Maybe there were some bureaucratic matters to handle before the occupation plans could get underway?

It was entirely likely, too, that she was being replaced, Peridot reflected. She still was not entirely certain why Blue Diamond had chosen a technician to lead a reconnaissance mission; it was most definitely outside the remit of her Gem type. True, her skills had turned out to be quite well-suited for the purpose, and so perhaps her Diamond had simply been prescient. Diamonds were often mysterious in Their ways. But if the mission was transitioning to a combat operation, perhaps she was meant to brief the Gem who would be commanding it before full reinforcements arrived, so they would be able to read in their subordinates personally.

 _“Frontier 6, this is L-A-C ident R-one-M-zero-five-four requesting permission to dock.”_ A low voice, almost eerily level, one that Peridot mentally tagged as _masculine_ before she remembered she was no longer on Remnant. She shook her head sharply, heading to a nearby terminal and pressing the appropriate button.

“LAC-R1M054, you are clear to dock. Welcome to Frontier 6.”

The ship slowed and pivoted, launching its docking cables. They found purchase on the magnetic plates outside, and the ship slowly reeled itself in towards the station. Peridot flipped the switch that allowed Frontier 6’s automated systems to take over, a collapsible walkway telescoping out to seal around the ship’s airlock. The station’s magnetic docking clamps closed on the ship, the sound which could not resonate in vacuum vibrating instead back to the outer chamber where Peridot stood.

Peridot stepped back to face the airlock on her end, standing at attention, thoughts still in a whirl as she contemplated what was next for her. Her role in the reclamation of α-Pink would almost certainly be minimised in the public reports, but she imagined she would be rewarded as much for her discretion as for her service. Maybe with one of the coveted shipyard positions or—or even being placed in charge of a new, improved Kindergarten on α-Pink itself! Or would it be called κ-Blue, instead? Blue Diamond had certainly been the driving force behind the reclamation efforts; it was not unreasonable to assume He meant to claim the colony for His own. She was not at all sure how well the surviving members of Pink Diamond’s court would take it if He did, though…

The doors hissed and pulled open. Peridot did her best to stand even straighter, staring directly ahead and saluting. Her suspicions were confirmed when only two Gems exited the airlock. Tall, well-built, they had the look of Quartzes, both with black-and-red colourations. Not Agates. Onyxes? Jaspers? She could not see either of their Gemstones. Maybe they were on their backs?

“Peridot 3IX?” Not the same voice she had heard over the intercom. This was the Gem to Peridot’s right, her skin coloured with mottled bands of gleaming black and deep red. Long, curly black hair fell down her back, the bottom layers threaded through with the occasional strand of red. Lots of iron in that one, even if her colouration had not been a dead giveaway.

“Y-Yes sir!” she blurted out, realising she had been silent too long as the Gem’s frown deepened, red eyes narrowing.

“Commander Jaspilite.” She nodded towards the Gem beside her without looking at him. “My assigned second, Bloodstone Jasper.”

Something in the way she said ‘assigned’ made Peridot think Jaspilite was not precisely elated by Bloodstone’s presence.

“Your report stated there was another Gem here,” Bloodstone said softly, looking around. With one eye, Peridot realised with a start. Not because the left eye was his Gemstone—it was not—but because there were _cracks_ across it, spreading up at an angle towards his hairline. The iris was a translucent grey, the pupil pale and cloudy, a sharp contrast to the dark, dark red of his other eye. His colouration was much darker than Jaspilite’s, almost entirely black, with only a few flecks of red in his hair and around his ruined eye.

“At ease, Peridot,” Jaspilite interjected, finally allowing her to lower her arms.

“Yes sir. Sir,” she added, nodding to Bloodstone as well. “Scapolite 7RB is currently undergoing the repair process which you approved over comms. We thought it best to carry out the procedure ASAP in order to maximise our future efficiency. Consequently, she is unable to present herself for inspection at this time.”

Jaspilite nodded curtly. “Understood. Sound call.”

“Do you wish to proceed immediately to the briefing room, sir, or would you prefer to wait until Scapolite is able to join us?”

“Better to hear the whole story at once, don’t you think?” Bloodstone said. Jaspilite shot him a cold look.

“I’ll hear your findings now, Peridot. Scapolite can contribute her observations later. The sooner I can begin developing an idea of the situation on the ground, the better.”

“Yes, sir. Allow me to—”

Jaspilite turned precisely on her toe, walking off down the corridor. At last, Peridot spotted her Gemstone: an oval cabochon at the small of her back, exposed by a small cutout. Its pattern matched her own exactly, though it had a more obviously metallic finish.

“—lead the way,” Peridot mumbled, following in her new commander’s wake. Bloodstone brought up the rear.

“She knows the way,” he said softly from behind her. “She’s been here before.” His voice went tense with anger, a hard edge forming on that measured dreaminess. “After our Diamond was shattered.”

* * *

“Black Scapolite,” Scapolite repeated under her breath. “Facet 3, Cut 7RB. Black Scapolite, Facet 3, Cut 7RB.” Her hands were shaking. There had to be some way to selectively manifest the _useful_ parts of a nervous system, not the parts that would betray her!

The briefing room door opened as she approached, and she stepped inside, snapping to attention and saluting. “Black Scapolite, Facet 3, Cut 7RB, reporting for debrief, sirs,” she announced.

“At ease, Scapolite. Have a seat.” Jaspilite gestured towards the lone chair sitting at the far end of the long table. Peridot was at the left of Jaspilite’s seat at the head. Bloodstone was to the commander’s right. She found his unblinking stare particularly unnerving as she eased herself gingerly into her seat.

Not quite as unnerving, however, as Jaspilite’s form. She was built along the same lines as Yang, right down to the shape of her face and the curl of her hair. Jaspilite might not have been home in a while, but she was unquestionably Remnan. No way two different planets had produced such similar Quartzes.

“The auto-patch seems to have done its job,” Bloodstone observed, startling her out of what was fast becoming a staredown. He seemed oblivious to the way Jaspilite slowly turned her head towards him, her face utterly expressionless. Out-of-turn or not, though, he was still Scapolite’s superior.

“Yes, sir,” she replied dutifully. “I’m as good as new.”

“Well, we both know that’s not quite true.” He reached across his body to slap a hand against the outside of his left upper arm, where a slim, curved metal plate was strapped. Like someone had given him half a pauldron to wear, and not even the more useful half. “Still. At least yours was more intact than mine.”

Scapolite could only blink at that, shocked as she understood his meaning. “You _cover_ your Gemstone? Sir?” she tacked on almost too late. In her defense, Peridot was openly gaping. Apparently this was news to her, too.

“I have special dispensation from White Diamond Herself. The damage to my Gemstone was…extensive. Even after repairs, it’s extremely fragile. One well-placed hit could be the end of me.” He shrugged, an artful, graceful ripple of motion.

“But…sunlight,” she protested weakly.

Bloodstone smiled, and she found herself wishing he hadn’t. _Maybe he just doesn’t get to practice it a lot?_ “I’m always careful to recharge in private.”

“If the two of you are done comparing battle scars,” Jaspilite said dryly, “I would _like_ to get started.”

“Yes ma’am. Sorry, ma’am,” Scapolite said immediately, ducking her head. Bloodstone simply gave his superior a nod and fell silent, resting his hands one atop the other on the table. His smile had dropped away, leaving his expression utterly blank.

Jaspilite frowned. “Ma’am?” she echoed, cocking her head, and Scapolite froze as she realised she’d made the exact mistake she’d warned Peridot against: lapsing into Valean.

“A term of deference used by the natives of Alpha Pink, sir,” Peridot said swiftly. “As I mentioned, Scapolite has spent a significant amount of time undercover as an ex-Rebel, which has produced valuable intelligence for our use. Certain behavioural adjustments had to be made to allow her to maintain her cover, including the use of organic languages and terminology.”

If it wouldn’t make the situation infinitely worse, Scapolite would launch herself down the length of the table just to hug the little green Gem. The dawning suspicion in Jaspilite’s eyes had burned down to mere disapproval.

“Remember you’re no longer among savages, Scapolite. You are a Gem among Gems, and you will conduct yourself in a civilised fashion.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now.” Jaspilite clasped her hands together, leaning forward. “Peridot has already given us an overview of the situation on Alpha Pink. _Clearly,_ you’ve conducted a more _intimate_ investigation.”

“Yes, sir. Although, if Peridot hasn’t mentioned it already, I did spend most of my time on…Alpha Pink as a prisoner. And incorporeal.”

“She conveyed that information. Do you have the Record with you?”

“Yes, sir.” Scapolite stood, reaching behind her and unbuckling the tome with fingers that fumbled far more than they ought. Her hands were shaking again. “It, um, it can be a little hard to navigate,” she said, holding the Record out in both hands, gripping it tight. “If you want, I can—”

“Bloodstone.” Jaspilite jerked her chin towards Scapolite. “Make yourself useful. Read it cover-to-cover.”

Bloodstone unfolded himself from his chair and drifted towards Scapolite with a loose, easy gait. “Of course, commander.” He gave Scapolite another thin smile as his gloved hand closed around the top of the book. She almost didn’t let go in time, barely able to make her fingers release the Record. As soon as it was out of her grasp, she felt vulnerable, a sensation of sickness spreading through her body.

“I’ll make sure to pass along every scrap of relevant information,” Bloodstone pledged, placing the stone book in front of his seat with great care before sitting down again.

“You have two weeks.” Jaspilite turned back to Scapolite. “You were freed from the Record by Rebellion troops. Describe them.”

“Well, they weren’t troops exactly…and they all claimed to have come into existence after the end of the war.”

“The previous _campaign_ of the war,” Jaspilite corrected her sharply. “The war for Alpha Pink is _not_ over, Scapolite, make no mistake.”

“Yes sir. The, the Uprising, then. There was an organic—”

_The Record never said Ruby was a Gem._

“—two organics,” she corrected herself, “but one of them wore a Rebel officer’s cloak, which confused me initially. The third individual responsible for freeing me was…a Quartz soldier.”

 _“Describe_ them,” Jaspilite repeated, looking thoroughly unimpressed so far.

“Well…the organics…” What were the least-useful identifying traits she could name? “They were both female—”

_Bang!_

Scapolite and Peridot both jumped. Jaspilite had slammed a fist onto the table. “The organics are of no consequence! Who was the _Gem?”_

“Sh-she was a Citrine,” Scapolite stammered.

“Then it’s impossible she emerged after the end of the Uprising. No Citrines were seeded on Alpha Pink.”

“I believe she was meant to be an Amethyst,” Scapolite admitted, her voice nearly failing her as she signed Yang’s death warrant.

“An _off-colour.”_ Bloodstone’s lip curled. “Of course, the neglect of the Kindergarten was bound to lead to impurities and flaws in later batches. Not a single part of our Diamond’s legacy has been left untainted by Rose Quartz’s heresy.”

“Down, Bloodstone.” Jaspilite leaned back, crossing her arms. “How many other Rebels have you encountered?”

“Two. Possibly three,” she amended. “There was an orange Gem of unknown type which attempted to obstruct our take-off.”

“It was difficult to properly assess him given the distance between us; visibility was also poor at the time. Based on the intensity and clarity of his colouration, I would assume he was either a Sphalerite or an Orange Zircon,” Peridot chimed in. “Possibly a Spessartine, though his projection type would have been on the small side for a Garnet.” She rested her chin in her palm, looking thoughtful. “He was _just_ tall enough, I think, but a bit lean.”

“And the others?”

Scapolite hesitated. “Demantoid. Black Pearl.” She didn’t bother elaborating. When it came to the Rose Rebellion, there was only one of each of those Gem types worth mentioning.

Jaspilite’s fist clenched even tighter. “I see,” she breathed. “The puppeteer and the _traitor.”_

“Which should I save for you?” Bloodstone murmured, lips twisting into something approximating a smile.

“I can take them both.”

“Greedy.”

“Insubordinate,” Jaspilite retorted, wiping the smirk off his face. “Peridot, continue working to ready Frontier 6 for full habitation. Bloodstone, the Record. Scapolite, do the natives have a common language, or are they still tribal?”

At Jaspilite’s dismissive tone, Scapolite found a protest sitting on the tip of her tongue, and swallowed it back down. “Valean seems to have become the universal language over the last few centuries.”

“You’ll instruct me in it, in case I need to get something across to the organics.”

“Some of the late-emergers do not appear to understand Adamant, either,” Peridot commented.

Jaspilite closed her eyes. “Diamonds. Killing them really is the kindest thing we can do, isn’t it?”

“Cull the weak, and the strong shall flourish,” Bloodstone said smoothly.

His commander looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Here I was ready to write you off as a lost cause.”

“My cause is yours, Commander. Justice for our Diamond.”

For the first time Scapolite had seen, Jaspilite smiled, razor-thin. “And taking back what’s ours.”

“What is _Hers,”_ Bloodstone corrected her.

Jaspilite eyed him a moment, then nodded. “Right. Get to it, everyone. Dismissed. Scapolite, with me.”

* * *

‘Comply, or be destroyed.’

That was the first Valean phrase Jaspilite had learned, at the commander’s own insistence. It was certainly to the point. Straightforward, impossible to misinterpret. A bit misleading, considering any organic who complied with Jaspilite’s command would, ultimately, still be destroyed. But why should a Gem worry about keeping her word to _savages?_

At one point during Jaspilite’s language lessons Scapolite had actually felt her stomach turn. Not literally, like something had gone horribly wrong with her projection or her Gemstone, but in the way an organic would mean it: a twisting and roiling that had almost caused her to gag even though she hadn’t consumed anything in almost a month. She hadn’t quite been able to hide it, had to wave it away as a symptom of adjusting to her repaired Gemstone. As Scapolite had suspected, she still couldn’t access anything she’d stored within it. There wasn’t much she’d lost, but her weapon was in there, and now it seemed it was forever out of reach. It felt like she was experiencing temperature flashes—cold helplessness and hot shame vying for dominance over her.

When she thought about the Record, the sick feeling only grew stronger, spread further. Mere days after she’d handed it over to Bloodstone, he’d cornered her in one of the hallways.

“You really have brought us an invaluable resource, Scapolite.”

“Of course, sir. Anything for the good of the empire.” _Hey, close-talker, back off._ She took a pointed step back from him. Bloodstone smoothly stepped forward again as she did, igniting a flicker of unease in her.

“The amount of insight it offers us into the later operations of the Rebellion—we’ve never had anything to compare to it.”

“Uh-huh.” Again, she stepped back. Again, he matched her.

“There are still a lot of blanks, though.” Step. Step. “I don’t suppose you could help me fill some of them in?”

“I—I don’t—anything in the Record, or anything that happened during the time it was active—” Scapolite was stumbling over her words, over her feet. Bloodstone never got closer, but he wouldn’t let her move away. His face was curious, earnest, but his working eye bored into hers with an intensity that made her shudder, and his voice was still so… _dead._ “I wasn’t around for it. I was powering the Record, I was unconscious.”

“I see. So you only know what the rebels would have known.”

Her back hit the wall. Her breath caught, _stopped—_ but so did Bloodstone, still exactly just a little bit too close.

“The—the _Record_ knows. I was unconscious,” she repeated.

“That’s very inconvenient, Scapolite.”

“Imprisonment isn’t usually about what’s convenient for the prisoner.” She clenched her shaking hands into fists. _“Sir.”_

“Hm.” He tilted his head. “I don’t really understand what you meant about the Record being hard to navigate. All I seem to have to do is ask it questions. Just like what we’re doing right now. Like you, it doesn’t have all the answers. But it gives me everything it has when I ask.”

It had Yang. It had her home on Patch. It had the Rebellion leaders who lived with her there. But it didn’t have Ruby or Weiss as anything more than inconsequential footnotes. It didn’t have Kuo Kuana at all.

“I’m here because I’m loyal to my Diamond and His kin,” Scapolite said, fighting to keep her voice even. “I am…a servant of Their divine Authority, and an arm of Their glorious empire. All glory be to the Diamonds, whose infinite and perfect Light guides us all.”

She must have remembered the words right, because slowly, another of those unnerving, unpractised smiles spread over Bloodstone’s face. “Of course. I would never dream of questioning the loyalty of such a dedicated Gem, who has suffered so dearly for her service.”

Now, _now_ he took that extra step forward she’d been dreading. She held her body stiff, refusing to flinch. “I have no doubt the Diamonds will reward you greatly upon our return to Homeworld. Perhaps a colonial advisor’s post. There may even be a Pearl in it for you.”

“A Pearl.” _Don’t show anything. Not one single feeling._

“Wouldn’t that be nice? Someone to take care of you, with your…” One of his hands lifted, his fingers hovering a bare inch away from her Gemstone. “…infirmity.”

“I’m more than capable of taking care of myself,” Scapolite whispered.

Finally, he stepped back. “I guess we’ll see. Thank you, again. You’ve been of great use.”

Scapolite wasn’t sure how long she’d remained there after he was gone, statue-still and clinging to the wall of an empty hallway like she’d shatter if she broke away. Longer than she was comfortable admitting. Not so long that Peridot or Jaspilite found her. When she finally managed to move again, she did not run back to her berth. She walked, with a careful, measured pace.

* * *

The best thing about Frontier 6 was that it was nearly empty—this was also one of the worst things, now that Scapolite had to worry about encountering Bloodstone on her own, but it did mean she and Peridot got individual quarters even though they wouldn’t normally rate such a privilege. Scapolite actually didn’t know for certain if the monitoring system was up and running again, but just in case there were eyes on her (or a single dark red eye), she resisted the urge to pace, instead working her way through a series of hand-to-hand drills to burn off her nervous energy. If anyone asked, she was just doing her part to prepare for the next stage of the operation. Surely no one could find fault with that.

Or so she assumed, since she didn’t actually know what the next stage _was._ She kept having to repress the urge to ask. Jaspilite—rightfully, by the rules of the hierarchy—didn’t even like it when her own second posed questions to her. It was up to her as the mission’s commander to choose when and how to disclose particulars to her subordinates. It was not Scapolite’s place to ask. Information was power, and Scapolite had only as much as those above her were willing to share. It was driving her _insane._ The Belladonnas’ library had spoiled her.

She stumbled, hissing air between her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut. _Don’t think about the library. Don’t think about Ghira and Kali and home_ —

 _You_ are _home. You made it home. You did it._

She buried her face in her hands.

 _I did this. I did_ all _of this. I helped Peridot leave the planet, I helped her call Epsilon Blue, I gave the Record to Bloodstone, I’ve taught Jaspilite how to demand Remnant’s absolute surrender. I even told them where to find what’s left of the Rose Rebellion. This was ME._

It wouldn’t be Scapolite who led the charge against the scattered Rebels. Not Scapolite who stripped away each layer of the planet’s paltry defenses until nothing was left. She wouldn’t be the one to call down the fire or the endless rain, killing Remnant’s biome while sparing the precious resources in its crust. She’d just be one of the thousands standing by, watching a whole world come to an end.

The others would celebrate. She’d be expected to do the same. If Bloodstone was serious, the entire _empire_ would laud her as a war hero. Because they understood what Scapolite had tried so hard to forget, that she didn’t need to shatter Gems, slaughter organics, or tear down enemy strongholds to play a role in Homeworld’s victory. Like every other Gem who served the Diamond Authority, she had just done her job. And she’d done it _so well._

…What would happen, she wondered, if she _stopped?_

Scapolite lowered her hands, staring unseeing at the back wall of her berth.

 _Jaspilite ordered Bloodstone to read the Record ‘cover-to-cover’, but Bloodstone just told me that he’s been using the search function. You don’t turn to the index if you actually mean to read the whole book page by page, right? He even came to see if_ I _could get him answers faster! He’s being impatient!_

_But he’ll still need to give his report. At some point, he’s going to have to buckle down and read through it all even if he doesn’t want to. As of today, though, he hasn’t done that._

There was still time. To…stop doing her job. To be the antithesis of what she was made to be. It was unthinkable, and she was _thinking it._ And if she didn’t…

_(“So the offense is…complicity through inaction?”)_

_(“That’s about the sum of it.”)_

She still couldn’t say if Rose Quartz’s rebellion had been the right choice. The Gem War had been hell to live through, and she couldn’t pretend not to care about the lives lost. And her own life, put on hold for thousands of years as she had been used and forgotten instead of treated or cleanly shattered. But all of that had _happened_. Over and done with. No matter what narrative Homeworld pushed, the reality was that they weren’t reclaiming the colony world of α-Pink. They were conquering the free world of Remnant. However high the price of that freedom had been, on both sides, it had been paid.

She couldn’t let the Diamonds steal it all away.

* * *

“Hey, Peridot? Do you have a data drive I could borrow?”

Peridot crawled out from under the terminal, a screwdriver in her hand and a look of surprise on her face. “A data drive? Why?”

“I’m going to record some Valean grammar modules for Commander Jaspilite to listen to while she works. I figure it’ll help her internalise it faster.” Scapolite glanced at the toolkit next to Peridot. “Did those come from your ship?”

“No. I found them in the maintenance closet on Deck Four. That is a very smart idea! It will certainly maximise both your efficiency and the commander’s.” Peridot reached into one of her jumpsuit pockets, digging around until she produced a sleek, wafer-thin strip of metal. “Here you go! You could fit a Zircon’s whole vocabulary on one of these.”

“Thanks. This’ll really help,” Scapolite said, absolutely sincere. “…You’ve been really nice to me, Peridot, even when I’ve been rude or dismissive or…”

“Grumpy,” Peridot supplied, using the Valean word. Scapolite laughed, looking down.

“Yeah. ‘Grumpy’. So, anyway, I just wanted to say…thanks. For everything.”

Peridot beamed. “Of course! Anything for—” _the good of the empire,_ but instead she stopped short. “For a friend,” she said haltingly, fidgeting.

Scapolite felt a knot in her throat. “You’re a good friend,” she managed. “I hope someday you make a better friend than me.”

She all but fled the room at that point, subtlety be damned, leaving Peridot staring after her with a frown on her face. Then the technician shrugged.

“Whatever that means,” she said, getting back to work.

* * *

Not only did the maintenance closet on Deck 4 have another toolkit, it also had a spectacular lack of surveillance equipment. Scapolite remained inside it for as long as she dared, using her shiny new wrist computer to load every bit of information she could think of onto the data drive. It might not count for much in the end, but it was something.

It was almost time to meet with Jaspilite for language lessons. That would give her the opportunity to board the battleship without raising suspicion. She kept her gait even and her gaze disinterested as she passed through the airlock, though in reality she felt as if her chest were being constricted the whole way over—nothing to do with the absence of air or gravity as she pushed off from the door and shot down the tunnel, just good-old-fashioned nerves, like she was a rookie on her first mission instead of a veteran embarking on her last.

Scapolite entered the ship just as she always did, but instead of taking the left-hand path towards Jaspilite’s ready room, she turned right. Bloodstone would be stationed aft, directly opposite her, to ensure his commander’s authority could be smoothly enacted throughout the whole ship. She’d never actually gone near that part of the ship before—had actively avoided it, actually—but one thing she could definitely say in favour of her species was that they were big fans of symmetry. All she’d have to do was count the doors.

_This one. This is it._

She took a deep breath and slapped the access panel. The door wasn’t sealed, and she’d known it wouldn’t be, with a crew of four, but somehow she was still startled by how easily and abruptly it opened. She wasted no time, though, slipping into the dim room and closing the door behind her. Bloodstone wasn’t here—his daily check-in with Jaspilite came right before language lessons, so Scapolite had been pretty confident he’d be gone—but she was still immediately overwhelmed by the feeling of being watched.

A ship’s interior wouldn’t be as strictly monitored as a space station’s—managing that many camera feeds was a waste of processing power for a system that might have to give a large chunk of that over to, say, the cyberwarfare suite at a moment’s notice. So that meant Scapolite was almost certainly imagining things, and given her current state of anxiety, that wasn’t exactly a shock. She shook herself. The Record was sitting on Bloodstone’s desk, right next to the controls for his comm terminal.

“Record,” she said quietly. “What’s the priority communications code for Beacon Academy?”

She keyed it into her wrist computer as it appeared on the page, uploading the files from Peridot’s data drive and using its connection to the ship to send it via the main communications array. Of course, Remnant’s unusual magnetosphere would prevent the message from going through until the battleship was nearly at its destination, but any warning had to be better than none. She heaved a sigh of relief as she saw the message drop into the comm buffer. There was always a chance someone would find it there, but she had to try. It was all she _could_ do—and there would be no evidence she’d ever recorded a message, so theoretically, they shouldn’t go looking for one. Which led her to the distasteful matter at hand, as she popped the data drive out and regarded it ruefully.

“Spycraft 101,” she muttered, then tossed it into her mouth and swallowed. “Ugh.”

And now for the grand finale. The one part of her plan there was no going back from and that she’d never be able to hide. Scapolite looked down at the open pages of the Record, unsure of what she was feeling. It had been her prison for thousands of years, but once she’d been freed, it had become her guide, her _salvation._ ‘An invaluable resource’, just as Bloodstone had said. She and the Record were not one and the same—but they had been, once, and that sense of connection was as much an anchor as a shackle.

“You did your job,” she said at last, touching her fingers to the mica pages one last time.

Then she gathered them in her grip, held them edge up, and pulled out the hammer she’d hidden beneath her coat, raising it high.

“Set yourself free,” Blake whispered, and brought the hammer down.

_Crunch. Crunch. Crrrack—!_

The pages shattered like glass, a thunderous noise that gave way to the sound of torrential rain as shards of mica fell in a glittering shower over the desk and floor. Blake backed away, breathing heavily, and it was only then she realised she’d been shouting with every blow. The hammer fell from her fingers. She leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes.

“Okay,” she panted. “Okay.”

If no one had come running yet, odds were no one was going to. She hadn’t expected that. Hope rose as Blake contemplated her options. She had a little time. She could go back to the station, get into Peridot’s ship, and zip back to Remnant—something she’d certainly thought of before, but hadn’t dared to seriously plan on. A scout ship could outfly a hulk like this easily, and while technology had come a long way in 5,000 years, she was pretty sure she could get it going. She’d had plenty of time to watch Peridot at the helm on the way here, after all.

_I might get out of this alive._

Something closed around her ankle and _yanked,_ flinging all such thoughts out of her head as she hit the floor bodily, mica shards flying. There was no breath in her to scream, even if she wanted to. She kicked frantically, but whatever had her—something sharp and spindly—wouldn’t give. Blake managed to flip onto her back, slapping one hand over her Gemstone defensively as she lifted her head to see…

 _What_ is _that!?_

Cloaked in shadow, the dim light glinted oddly off the _thing_ that had her. She could see—twiglike, were they _fingers,_ wrapped around her leg, more reaching towards her, attached to a skeletal arm and there was something _wet—!_

Her horror rose. Blake still struggled in silence, not wasting the time to draw breath into her too-tight chest as she scrabbled her other hand over the floor, desperately searching for her discarded hammer. She couldn’t take her eyes off her attacker, couldn’t afford to and besides she was transfixed by each awful glimpse of it. She slapped the reaching hand away, blindly kicking into the shadows with her unbound foot, and was rewarded—or perhaps punished—by a shrill yet guttural shriek. Something in the mass moved. Was that a head? It was, it must have been, or else this creature had eyes where nothing should ever have eyes, if that was the right word for the wide, blank pits that glared up at Blake. Their quicksilver shine reflected back her own terrified face.

 _There!_ She’d found the hammer, her fingers brushing the head of it. She snatched it up as best she could, barely getting her hand around the handle and swinging awkwardly at any part of her attacker that she could reach. Mostly, she struck air, but there were a few promising crunches before the creature’s other hand grabbed her wrist, hissing. Its fingers were like blades, slicing furrows into Blake’s projection, motes of light shearing away into darkness.

_No, no, no…!_

She kicked again, or tried; she could only manage to jerk her knee up, landing a glancing blow on its shrouded torso. The creature didn’t even make a sound at that, barely twitching as it bent her wrist back. Further…and further…!

The door slid open, light spilling in over the floor from the hallway. The creature shrieked and flung itself back into the shadows, yanking Blake with it. Blake heard even footsteps give way to a pounding rush of motion, the door closing automatically and plunging the room back into its state of near-darkness.

“No, don’t!” Bloodstone, speaking with more energy Blake had ever heard from him before. “She’s one of us, she’s—”

The creature had frozen at Bloodstone’s words, but the Gem’s steps had slowed again as soon as they’d first come crunching over the mica.

“Well.” His voice had gone dangerously soft. “I suppose she isn’t one of us, after all.”

She heard him stop beside her. Saw him crouch down.

 _“Scapolite.”_ He sounded _so_ disappointed, almost comically so, like a parody of a despairing parent. “What have you done?”

“Get it off me,” Blake hissed between clenched teeth.

Bloodstone shook his head slowly, reaching out and peeling her fingers off the handle of the hammer one by one while the creature held her down. “Not ‘it’,” he chastised her softly. A sob escaped her when he finally relieved her of her only weapon.

“That’s enough,” he said gently; to both of them, Blake thought, as he only then turned his head to address the creature directly. “I can handle her from here. You should rest.”

The creature made a gnashing, chiming, angry sound at that, fingers tightening and carving away more of Blake as they did. Like Adamant run through a blender, a distorted, backwards recording of a Gem’s voice.

“I understand. Please, leave the rest to me.”

Slowly, reluctantly, the creature released her and retreated into the shadows. Blake heard it moving away, each movement accompanied by a sound like ringing glass as its limbs struck the floor.

“What the _hell?”_ Blake demanded, her voice cracking as she stared up at Bloodstone with wide eyes.

“You sneak into my quarters, destroy my property, attack my companion, and you think you have the right to ask questions?” Bloodstone swung a leg over hers, _too close,_ and he still held the hammer he’d taken from her. He leaned back, resting his empty hand on his thigh. The other lowered the hammer gently towards her Gemstone. There was a quiet _tink_ as metal met stone, making Blake flinch.

“Do you know what you are, Scapolite?” Bloodstone asked idly, tapping the hammer against her. “You’re a liar.” _Tink._ “A saboteur.” _Tink._ “A _traitor.”_

That blow fell a little heavier, producing a louder chime. Blake held herself as still as possible and refused to make a sound.

“I could shatter you right now and face no consequences at all. The proof of your betrayal is all around us.” He gestured. “Why now? Why this? Was it worth it?”

 _I don’t know. But_ “I had to do something.”

“No. All you had to do was _nothing._ Nothing at all, and you would have been a hero.” Bloodstone shook his head mournfully. “But here we are.”

“Just get it over with,” Blake bit out, glaring. “Stop dragging it out!”

“Unfortunately, since you’ve destroyed our best resource, _you_ are now our best resource. You’ll still be coming to the colony with us. You might be useful in…facilitating matters with the locals. Or maybe you’ll make a useful hostage.” Bloodstone leaned back, lifting the hammer away. He still held it poised, ready. “You don’t want to discuss the details of what happened here. Jaspilite isn’t someone you want to irritate with idle gossip—and we _can_ do without you, if you’re a little too persistent about pushing this _ridiculous_ story about what I keep in my quarters.”

“She doesn’t know?” Blake whispered. This was Jaspilite’s ship. There shouldn’t be _anything_ aboard that she didn’t know about, that she hadn’t personally cleared.

“Know what?” Bloodstone smiled his awful, plastic smile and stood, grabbing her by the hair as he did and yanking her to her feet from between his, pulling a yelp from her. Mica shards bit into her, gaining no purchase on her projection but leaving thin furrows that slowly filled back in. Before she was even fully standing, she was flailing at him, clawing like a creature herself, half-blind from his grip on her head. At the feel of sharp metal at her neck, she froze, slowly drawing away as he directed, her head forced back to further expose her throat. The tip of a katana the same deep red as Bloodstone’s working eye was poised beneath her chin.

“You should really consider cooperating. It would be inconvenient to have to discorporate you, but you’ll have plenty of time to re-form before you have a chance to be useful.” Releasing her hair, he grabbed her arm instead, spinning her roughly around to face the door. His blade slid against the point where neck met shoulder. “You have a standing appointment with the commander, don’t you? It would be rude to keep her waiting.”

He shoved at her back. _“Move.”_

* * *

“Councillor, all I ask is that—”

On the holographic display of Ozpin’s terminal, Councillor Gilt raised a hand, subtly shaking his head. _“Professor, I and my colleagues have great respect for your efforts and the efforts of your species in bringing peace to our world. It has been our honour and our privilege to be able to step up and maintain that order.”_

Ozpin fought to control his expression, leaning back slightly in his chair as Gilt finally closed in on the point he’d been circling around for the past ten minutes. _Go on. Say the magic word. Eleven letters, begins with an S, means ‘I don’t have to listen to you’._

 _“Since the end of the Liberation Wars, mankind has come a long way in establishing our own self-sufficient systems and agencies for assessing and combatting threats to our way of life.”_ Gilt’s smile was earnest, charming, and just a _touch_ apologetic. Combined with the soothing, oh-so-reasonable way he was explaining history he _knew_ Ozpin had witnessed, it made for a textbook-worthy example of polite condescension. _“These people are incredibly diligent in their work, absolutely tireless.”_

“And I assure you, Councillor, I in no way wish to call into question the dedication or efficacy of any of our people, no matter their species,” Ozpin said gently, his sense of resignation only growing as he saw Gilt blink a little more rapidly at that, though the man’s cordial expression never faltered— _ah, this one doesn’t think we’re on the same side. How dare I count myself Valean, much less imply other Gems might do the same?_ “I can personally verify, however, that my intelligence is current and accurate, although it may seem to contradict reports from your agencies. Understandably, any government organisation must focus on the big picture; this at times comes at the cost of overlooking smaller incidents of the sort that I and _my_ colleagues have observed.”

_“As Huntsmen, your associates of course have autonomy to handle any ‘smaller incidents’ on your own.”_

“Indeed we did, b—”

_“Their initiative is laudable. It’s freelancers like your colleagues that allow us to keep our eyes on that big picture.”_

“The incidents to which I’m referring all clearly point at worse to come. If you would just—!”

 _“I understand that you’re passionate about this, and I promise you I and the rest of the Council feel just as strongly about the safety of Vale and of all of Remnant.”_ His hands held out palms-down over his desk, Gilt spoke right over the Gem until Ozpin cut himself off in frustration, directed as much at himself as the councillor. Raising his voice at this point had been an amateur mistake, and Gilt had pounced on it immediately, becoming the calm, clear-headed voice of reason against Ozpin’s lunatic ravings. Ozpin would have done the same in his place. Even so, Gilt’s soothing words and body language had very much the opposite effect on him, his carefully-composed features cracking into a wry, wintery smile born of purest scorn.

It appeared the feeling was mutual; sensing victory was near, Gilt’s own smile lost its sympathetic edge and widened. He radiated confidence as he delivered the killing blow. _“The Kingdom of Vale thanks you for your service and for continuing to respect our sovereignty in these matters.”_

Oh, well, if it was an issue of _sovereignty._ Nothing meddling old Professor Ozpin could do about that, was there? The Hunt had been a threat to _sovereignty,_ among the other charges laid at his feet as its commander. Ozpin’s almighty powers of receiving reports of monsters and then telling people they should go fight the monsters had made the Hunt nothing less than his private army, and on top of it all he had the nerve, the absolute _gall_ not to age and die and take the weight of his reputation with him like a civilised fellow ought. How had anyone been supposed to assert their _sovereignty_ with his grim spectre of academic administration hanging over them all for eternity?

 _“On a personal note, it’s been an honour to speak with you, Professor.”_ Oh, lovely. Gilt was going for a victory lap. _“Your work throughout history has been nothing short of inspiring. You’ve earned your retirement many times over. I’m glad to have been able to put your mind at ease today.”_

“Of course, Councillor,” Ozpin said in a voice like warm syrup. “I thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I understand you must be very busy. I simply wished to ensure you were in possession of all the available information. I would hate to see our people imperilled over an easily-avoided failure of communication.”

Gilt’s eyes narrowed just slightly as the councillor effusively thanked him for his dedication and wished him well, mangling the Adamant word for parting in the process. If Ozpin were in a better mood or held Gilt in higher esteem, he might have appreciated the effort. As it was, the sound of him trying and failing to replicate a noise his throat wasn’t built to produce ignited a flare of irritation that immediately drowned beneath a sudden wave of exhaustion. He didn’t bother to mask his pained wince. The odds the two of them would ever have to speak to each other again were slim.

“Good day, Mr. Gilt,” he said curtly, terminating the call and banishing the display in a single gesture. Ozpin leaned forward, elbows on the desk, fingers pressed to his temples as he stared blankly at the tiny cogs turning beneath the glass, their soft pocket-watch ticking the only sound in the room.

_Profit, prophet. Torchwick chose the wrong career._

He’d now delivered his warning directly to the ruling Council of Vale—or part of it, at any rate. If only this were a simple matter of disowning liability, Ozpin could wash his hands of the whole mess and tell himself his part was done, on Gilt’s head be it; his parting words to the man had been very intentionally chosen to drive that home. Instead, he was faced with the knowledge that he had now done his absolute best, and it hadn’t been enough.

Lionheart had been Ozpin’s first call after he had broken the news to his closest associates; Haven’s director had seen no more luck in getting through to Mistral’s council than Ozpin had with Vale’s, but every Gem Huntsman on Remnant was on alert for the moment all hell would break loose. All but a small handful who had immediately gone dark and gone to ground, anyway. As if there was anywhere on the planet where they could hide from Homeworld. A number of organic Huntsmen had heeded the warning as well, though most were understandably puzzled—why was this happening, and why was it happening _now?_ How was it happening at _all,_ what was the plan, how could they fight back?

The other Gems, by and large, had not bothered to ask if there even was a plan. It had always been understood that if, for some reason, the Diamonds turned their gaze back to Remnant, that would be the end of it. The panicked desperation that would surely have consumed Remnant’s Gems if they’d been told about Peridot while there was still a chance to stop her was absent now that the end was inevitable. They knew what would come next. They would fight and they would die, grateful for the borrowed time in which they’d lived free. He wished he had something better to offer them. A brilliant strategy, an inspiring speech. _Something._

Ozpin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Let it out, slowly.

“What next?” he asked himself. He and Summer had torched most of Gemkind’s bridges up north after Liberation, so there wasn’t much point reaching out to Atlas. He supposed could try appealing to Vacuo after all, but as a general rule they followed Vale’s lead in matters like this, historically having a rocky relationship with the other kingdoms. No, what was he thinking? There was no ‘supposed’ about it. He’d work his way up to Vacuo’s council just as he had Vale’s, call by call, day by day until the person telling him ‘no’ was someone who _could_ have said ‘yes’. Damn it, _someone_ had to listen to him eventually.

Didn’t they?

A new sound intruded on his silent self-conference, a repeating low chime like the toll of a small bell. Ozpin didn’t even register it at first, mired in what-ifs and if-onlys, but the first tone that finally reached his conscious mind had his eyes snapping open and his head immediately lifting from his hands to stare at the holographic icon that had appeared over his desk.

He swiped it down with one hand, spinning up the rest of the display with the other. The priority message he’d just been alerted to was already open and waiting for him. It was a terse line of text: **LAC inc, LZ unknown. Drone crew, Gem cmd team, 3 hostiles 1 friendly** , and in case that wasn’t alarming enough there were two attached files. The smaller file appeared to be an audio recording. The larger file, when he opened it, was a wireframe model of a ship, complete with cross-sections and component details. A sleek, refined version of the smallest warships that had served as the vanguard of the Gem fleet back in Ozpin’s day, and the ship from which this message had almost certainly originated.

They were out of time.

In a strange way, it was almost a relief; Ozpin could feel the fear and frustration that wanted to well up inside him freezing over before they could reach the surface, blessed icy _focus_ taking over in the moment of crisis. Without even checking the audio file, he loaded the entire message into a compressed packet and sent it off to its next recipients, his scroll chiming in his pocket as it reached him as well. He snatched up his cane and stood, raising the scroll to his ear as he strode towards the elevator.

 _“Hopefully, by the time you get this message I’ll have already told you everything in person,”_ Scapolite’s hushed voice said. _“But if this is the first you’re hearing from me, then this is all the warning you’ll get. A Gem light assault craft has just breached Remnant’s magnetosphere and should be making landfall in approximately one hour’s time. I don’t know where; I couldn’t get anyone to tell me without raising suspicion. If I’m still alive, I’m onboard, but currently unable to help you. If I’m not, well, the good news is that at least I managed to destroy the Record. That’s the only way I could have gotten caught before I had a chance to get away.”_

* * *

Qrow sat frozen on the edge of his bed as he listened, staring down at his scroll in horror.

_“I don’t know how much of it Bloodstone got to read, but I know it wasn’t the whole thing. Bloodstone Jasper is one of only three other Gems aboard. The others are the Peridot you’ve already met and the mission commander, Jaspilite.”_

“Oh, no.”

_“The ship is otherwise operated by automation and manned by robonoids. I don’t know why Homeworld would send such a small group, but we’re all that’s coming. We didn’t send our report through official channels, and Jaspilite hasn’t reported in to anyone since she arrived at Frontier 6, where we’re currently headquartered. I think this whole operation might be off the books. So if you can stop what’s coming, there’s a chance you can put an end to it all. Make it look like the whole mission failed in the first phase, and Jaspilite and Bloodstone got reckless trying to investigate.”_

* * *

Yang’s eyes were wide as they met Ruby’s, the scroll in her hands broadcasting Scapolite’s message through Taiyang’s living room. The man himself was leaning over the back of the couch between them, watching the device intently, as if somehow the ever-shifting waveform on its screen could tell him more than the sound it represented alone.

 _“I hope I’m there with you right now, getting ready to fight with you. I hope I got to apologise in person for the terrible choices I’ve made up until now.”_ She sounded like she was on the edge of tears, but her voice remained strong, unbroken. _“But honestly, I doubt I got away. Maybe…maybe that’s for the best. I don’t know. But if I haven’t said it already, then this is the only chance I’ll ever get to say that I’m sorry. For everything. Ruby, Weiss…Yang…”_

Yang’s free hand clenched around the hem of her skirt. Ruby’s lip trembled.

_“Thank you for helping me. I can’t ever repay you for setting me free, or for trying to keep me safe. So far, it’s more like I’ve been punishing you for it. I know this isn’t enough to make it right. I don’t even know if it’ll make a difference in the end. But I have to try. And if I’m not just talking to myself right now, then I succeeded.”_

* * *

Alone in her small cell, Blake had her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them tightly, her forehead resting atop them. Her eyes were shut tight. She hadn’t moved from this position in days. She didn’t move now, either, except to curl her body even tighter around itself as she felt the ship begin to rumble with the bone-rattling turbulence of atmospheric re-entry. One way or another, it would all be over soon.

_“Either way, I’ve done everything I can. The rest is up to you. Good luck.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alt chapter title: Many Bad Things Happen to Blake in Rapid Succession. idk, it felt a little on the nose though.
> 
> Gee, the relentless social Darwinist and pseudo-fascistic species supremacist are Homeworld Gems, who would've thought? There's some hairs to split per their exact roles, but anyone who guessed either Raven or Adam for Jasper is correct, a winner is you! I couldn't bring myself to do the body-part ships, I know they're iconic but I just couldn't. Flying saucers are equally canonical and saner to picture. Should you wish to avoid the term 'flying saucer', I humbly offer the following phrases which may be used instead: Battle frisbee. Doom cymbal. LaserDisc. Death hubcap. Also guess who just realised that eventually there'll probably need to be a consistent set of rules governing Gem spaceship design? Me it's me and that sound you hear is me cry-laughing
> 
> In conclusion, I just wanna remind everyone that Ozpin is old enough that when he refers to Jacques as 'spurious', he's not just sayin' he's fake, he's straight-up calling him a bastard and not in the weird-compliment way. This isn't to flex my knowledge of archaic definitions because honestly I didn't even know that one before I wrote this chapter, I just think it's really important to highlight any moment where Jacques Schnee gets dissed to any degree. Oz is *real* tired of having to find new ways to say 'no, you can't Onceler our magic forest'.
> 
> Next time: IT'S HAPPENING. OH GOD IT'S HAPPENING. RWBY-fied Steven Universe season 1 finale part 1 GO! That came out as more of a mouthful than I was expecting tbh. See you then! Thanks for reading!


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